My name is Sherry Heldt, and I live in Omaha, Nebraska here in the United States. A little something about myself, I have been married to Roger for 34 years.  We have a beautiful son Shawn (our only child together) who at 22 died from an aortic dissection and aneurysm after being misdiagnosised in the ER at our local hospital.  My husband has two sons by a previous marriage and we have two wonderful teenage grandsons T.J. who is 16 and Dylan who is 14 going on 20 they all live in LaCrosse, Wisconsin.

 

I am a Paraprofessional for the Omaha Public Schools working in the Multi-handicapped Moderate room at Norris Middle School. I have worked for Omaha Public School for 16 years. We have 5 kids in our classroom this year with ages ranging from 12 to 15.  We are a work awareness program with academics taking second place in our program.  Our students are mentally challenged, so our objective is to teach them to work and function in the world around them. 

 

I got interested in Marfan's and wanting to educate myself and others after Shawn died. After Shawn died I was diagnosed with Marfan a year or so later after seeing a Genetic Doctor at our local University teaching hospital. I had a aortic valve replaced and an aneurysm wrapped in February of 1995.  Unbeknown to us that Shawn would died from the same thing I had lived through because we didn't know what Marfan's even was.  I have a dream that someday with more education and more research that Marfan's will be a disease of the past.