Published: Thursday, February 7, 2013 1:06 AM CST

Congenital heart defects are the No. 1 cause of birth defect related deaths.

One out of every 100 children is born with a congenital heart defect.

In the United States, twice as many children die from congenital heart defects each year than from all forms of childhood cancer combined — yet funding for pediatric cancer research is five times higher than it is for heart defects.

I am one of those born with a heart defect, but just by looking at me on the outside, you’d think I was a healthy adult.

I had open-heart surgery at about two months of age to repair a condition Tetrology of Fallot back home at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. My second open-heart surgery came at 23 years old, on Dec. 6, 2012 at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. By the time many children with heart defects reach their teenage years, they’ve needed several surgeries to stay alive.

Tetrology of Fallot is a condition where blood that does not have oxygen spills out to other areas of the body, causing obvious problems if not treated.

I underwent pulmonary valve replacement surgery on Dec. 6, a recovery that lasted six weeks at home — including four weeks without driving. However, I was able to return to work in the middle of January.

February is American Heart Month, and Feb. 7-14 is Congenital Heart Awareness Week. Thanks to new technology, many children are able to survive their defects, but others are not so lucky. Each child with a defect, however, now has someone to look up to in Shaun White, who has won multiple Olympics and X-Games medals who was born with Tetrology of Fallot.

I live a fairly normal life, aside from needing surgery as well as going to a cardiologist to get checked on every year. I graduated from high school, got my bachelor’s degree and then moved to Yankton to work for the Press & Dakotan. Without the surgery I had, particularly as an infant, none of this would have been possible. Without the surgery I had in December, things would have continued to deteriorate.

My surgeon said because the deterioration has occurred over an extended period of time, I never felt how bad it actually was — that is, until after this surgery when I saw how big of a difference it made and how much better I feel because of it.

As technology continues to improve, more babies will have these problems detected sooner, making survival and living a normal life more possible than it ever has been. State Sen. Jean Hunhoff (R-Yankton) has seen the need, as she introduced SB 168, which requires newborns to be screened for congenital heart defects. The bill was passed on Feb. 4.

Although survivorship into adulthood is a strong possibility for those with a heart condition, more research must be done to find out why so many born with a heart condition do not have it detected until they reach adulthood — or until after it’s too late.

I live a fairly normal life, and from outside appearances you’d never know I was born with a heart defect or that I’ve had two surgeries to correct it. Congenital heart defects are a real problem — a problem that must be solved in order to have more and more children survive their defects and live a normal life.

You can follow Andrew Atwal Twitter at twitter.com/andrewatwal