5 Weeks Old Today!!!

Wow, today mommy and daddy told me that I am 5 weeks old. I have no idea how long that is but they seemed to be pretty happy. Anyway, I found out early yesterday evening that I was moving to the "step-down" unit on 7W at the hospital. This is going to be my last stop before heading home! I am healing very well from my surgery and my oxygen, blood pressure, and heart rate levels are holding steady. All the doctors and staff seem to be pretty pleased with my progressand I am very excited to be moving to 7W because I'll have more one-on-one time with mommy and daddy. They have been changing my diapers and learning to do a lot more things for me because I don't have my own nurse like I did in the CICU, plus they have to do everything themselves once we are all home! Mommy and daddy will be administering my daily medications, checking my feeding tube placement and also placing my feeding tube if it were ever to come out. This afternoon I saw my friends from speech therapy who are helping me figure out how to eat from a bottle. Mom and Dad have full confidence that I should be able learn quickly because I love sucking and playing with my "binkie". My room here is totally different from my room in the CICU. I could share a room with another patient, and fortunately, I had the room to myself last night but tonight I think I'm going to have a neighbor. I hear it's another little one and I'm hoping maybe it's a girl that I can "flirt" with, as mommy and daddy like to say (whatever that means).

* The three of us cannot stress how grateful and thankful they are to everyone who has played a part in getting us through these last several weeks. The thoughts, prayers and support have definitely played an essential part in both Will's successful surgery and recovery as well as in keeping Mom and Dad healthy and strong during this time. We do ask that you keep sending your thoughts and prayers our way as this is just the "first step" in Will's journey that will require two additional heart surgeries in the future. Thanks again to you all1

Love,

Katie, Chris, and Iron Will Saykes