Heart disease touches volunteer
Like so many lives, Sheila Mechling’s has been touched many times by heart disease. As a child, Mechling remembers making many trips from her family’s West Virginia home to Baltimore, Md., so her sister, who was born with a heart defect, could undergo two open-heart surgeries and follow-up treatments at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Md.
“My father was a coal miner in West Virginia when I was a child growing up,” Mechling said. “At that time, coal miners had a two-week vacation in July. Every year, we went to John Hopkins Hospital for our vacation, so my sister could get the treatment that she needed. She was only 8 years old when we started going there.”
The surgeries and treatments gave her sister a second chance at life. Mechling’s sister, Barbara Morris, is now 59 years old and lives in Winchester, Va.
But that wasn’t Mechling’s only experience with heart disease. Her 81-year-old mother, Dollie Kania of Virginia Beach, Va., also suffers from heart problems.
“My mother comes from a large family of nine, and every one of her brothers and sisters died of heart problems,” she said. “I also had a 35-year-old cousin who died of a massive heart attack while he was serving overseas in the military. Heart disease can strike anyone at any time.”
Because of her family’s history with heart disease, Mechling realizes how important it is to raise money for the American Heart Association.
That’s one of the reasons why Mechling began participating in the annual Heart Walk and eventually agreed to serve as co-chairman for this year’s Heart Gala, the biggest fund-raising event for the Fayette County Division of the American Heart Association.
“I’m beginning to think that heart disease is in my family’s genes,” she said.
“And at some point, I’m probably going to suffer from heart disease as well,” she added. “It’s gotten to be pretty personal for me.”
Several years ago, Mechling said someone approached her and her husband, Russ Mechling, asking them if their family-owned business, Fayette Engineering Co., would participate in the annual Heart Walk.
“That’s how I got started with the heart association,” Mechling said.
“At a wrap-up meeting after the Heart Walk, I remember sitting and talking at length with Leda Gismondi (the other co-chairman of this year’s Heart Gala),” she added. “We talked about everything, and Leda told me why she volunteers for the heart association. Leda’s husband died of a heart attack.
“I started going to the Heart Gala meetings, and I guess that led me to the point where I am today,” she added.
“Leda is so inspiring and so dedicated to the heart association, and it just seems to rub off on everyone that Leda touches.”