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To the Editor:

I don’t understand the meaning of the word normal because my life is far from it. I wasn’t born as a normal, healthy child would be. I was born with atrioventricular canal defect, a hole in the center of my heart.

I was born on September 29, 1997 in Zamboanga City on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines and I was unable to breath and turned blue. My mother rushed me 435 miles north to Saint Luke’s Hospital in Manila and one week later I was diagnosed with a heart murmur. The doctor said I would need to have a surgery soon, so my mother flew me straight to the Westchester Children’s Hospital in New York.  more »