By Gretchen Keiser

The Easter season with its promise of new life has a sharp poignancy for Peter Gray, 50, of Stone Mountain.

Technological advances hold out hope to him of a new life physically, but technology cannot guarantee the gift of life he needs, which can only be given by a generous spirit.

A solid-looking man who uses his wry humor to offset the vulnerability he faces every day, Gray is waiting to receive a new heart.

Unaware of the world of heart transplants until last fall, he has become knowledgeable as he faced the serious state of his own health and then the possibility that he could be a candidate for one of the heart transplants done at Emory University Hospital over the next few months.

Balancing hope against the knowledge that there are more people waiting for heart transplants than there are donors, Gray says he is never complacent about the time he has. “When you’ve learned as much as I have about the difficulty of getting donors and getting hearts, that in my present condition I could suffer a heart attack at any time,” he says, “suddenly I’m out every day, whether going to church, to exercise or to the grocery store. Always in the back of your mind, you’re aware today could be the day.”

The father of six children and the grandfather of three. Gray is a former computer software salesman who began a time of great difficulty in late 1984 when the company he was working for closed down.

After months of fruitless job interviews, he took a part-time job delivering pizzas to pay some of the bills. Looking back he thinks stress from the job and the “knowledge that you gained going on interviews that they don’t want you because you were too old” were factors affecting his health. In late September 1985, thinking he was battling pneumonia, he was working and taking antibiotics for several days until he finally became too weak to get out of the delivery truck. The next morning he went to the hospital where doctors said he was experiencing heart failure and probably had been for several days.

“I guess I was lucky to survive,” said Gray, who spent seven days in intensive care at St. Joseph’s Hospital. A heart catheterization, which probes the veins and arteries to uncover any blockage and show the condition of the patient’s heart, revealed, Gray said, that “I had lost 80 percent function of my heart.”

The prognosis was that he would be 100 percent disabled, work eliminated and all other activities sharply curtailed. Gray says he was expected to live only six to 18 months.

However, he is battling back. A former two to three pack a day smoker and a man who was “known to have four or five beers,” he has stopped drinking and smoking and completely altered his diet.

“All those horror stories you hear about cholesterol are true,” he advises, pulling out a list of the forbidden foods and saying, “all the things on here I’ve eaten all my life.”

His family doctor suggested that he might be a candidate for a heart transplant and he remembers telling him, “You don’t have to sell me a transplant,” which has the potential to alter his limited lifestyle.

“You can get very depressed, particularly when you’re home alone all day and you don’t have too much else to think about,” he said.

In December he went for an appointment at Emory, which began performing heart transplants April 22, 1985 and has now performed 15 successfully as of March 18, 1986. A lengthy series of tests and interviews and a second heart catheterization “showed my heart had improved slightly from St. Joe’s. From not smoking and not drinking there had been a slight improvement,” Gary said.

He went home without knowing if he had been selected for the heart transplant program and spent a “long, long two and a half weeks” waiting to hear that he had been judged a good candidate for the surgery.

According to Judy Smith, public relations for the hospital, he is one of 10 people waiting for heart transplants at Emory right now. Some are critically ill and hospital-bound. Others are out and about, wearing beepers so that they can be called to the hospital immediately if a heart is made available. Others like Gray are waiting it out.

Struggling with depression because of the delay, Gray, at the suggestion of Emory cardiologist Dr. William Knopf, is taking part in a structured exercise program at the hospital’s rehabilitation center. Once 236 pounds, he is now down to 210 and working his way toward 173 pounds. Losing the weight and working out with other heart transplant candidates “has helped” ease the anxiety about waiting and not knowing if and when a transplant may come, Gray said.

In the meantime he is also trying to let people know that “there is a tremendous success rate with transplants right now” and that more donors are needed.

“Ever since this happened, it has been brought home to me very, very clearly,” he laughed wryly, “that we’re not going to live forever. But very many people, especially young people, think they’re going to live forever.”

Unwillingness to confront death keeps people from thinking about donating organs to those in need, he believes. Also, many people are unaware that transplants are taking place more often and with greater success.

In 1984 there were 346 heart transplants performed in the United States, according to the American Council on Transplantation. There were also 6,968 kidney transplants and 24,000 cornea transplants that year. The number of heart transplants has risen year to year. In 1981 there were 62, the next year there were 103 and the next year 172. There are no national figures available for 1985 yet.

The American Council spokeswoman said the success rate for heart transplants was 80 percent at the end of the first year after the operation. Ms. Smith at Emory University said the five-year success rate was 75 percent.

Simply being willing to donate a heart upon death does not make one an eligible heart donor. At Emory a heart must be donated from a man under the age of 40 because of the awareness that people over those ages are vulnerable to heart disease themselves and might be giving the transplant recipient a diseased heart.

In addition, blood type must match and the approximate size and weight of the person donating and the person receiving must match. Because of these concerns even those waiting for heart transplants do not know who will be the first to receive one. If the right match is made, Gray might be called at any time to come to the hospital to receive a new heart.

In the meantime, the Corpus Christi parishioner says that he has observed his own attitude change with time. Gray, who says that his faith has been critical to him at this time, says, “I would no more ask God for a heart than I would ask you for $1,000. So what I generally pray for is strength and acceptance. As much as I would really like to get a heart, it is not at the top of my list.

“At the top,” he said, “is just to try to be supportive to my family and live my life as best as I know how.”

(Those interested in obtaining more information about organ donation or transplants may contact the Atlanta Regional Organ Procurement Agency (AROPA) at 872-1782.)