Heart-swap girl Sally Slater has been moved out of intensive care at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle.

And she has written a moving note to her grandparents, Tom and Barbara Slater, from her isolation bed, sending them love and kisses.

Six-year-old Sally underwent a life-saving heart transplant after a last- minute nationwide appeal for a donor. Her mum and dad, Bridget and Jon, both 36, of Kirkby Malham, near Skipton, have been constantly at her side and are expected to remain at the hospital for at least another month.

Sally has had a pacemaker fitted in an emergency operation after the external pacemaker became faulty, and she has been undergoing regular physiotherapy.

Barbara and Tom, of Threshfield, near Grassington, visited Sally yesterday, the day after she telephoned them for the first time.

"She wrote a message to us on a piece of paper and held it up. It was love and kisses. It was lovely to see her smiling and her eyes were sparkly," said Barbara. "She held up her toys and told us what they were called. The physiotherapy is causing her some distress, she says the medicine tastes horrible and where surgery has been carried out for the pacemaker to be fitted is discomforting. But she is very good and coping admirably. Jon and Bridget have not told her any fibs. If she asks a question she is told truthfully.

"She has been told she must take the medicine for the rest of her life. It upset her a bit, but she is a little trooper."

Sally is still in isolation but has been allowed in a wheelchair. She has been allowed to eat yoghurt and ice cream but is still mainly being fed intravenously.

Jon and Bridget, who works at Craven College in Skipton, ask anyone wishing to help children like Sally to donate to the Heart Surgery Fund at Leeds General Infirmary.

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