Two photos of a smiling Representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona were released Sunday by her office, her hair short but few other telling signs of the gunshot wound to the her head.
The photos, which appeared on her Facebook page, were taken May 17 outside her Houston hospital, and are the first clear snapshots of Ms. Giffords since the shooting five months ago during a constituent meet-and-greet in a Safeway parking lot in Tucson.
The photos showed how far she has come since she was wounded in the left side of her forehead, but her spokeswoman, Pia Carusone, has cautioned that Ms. Giffords still has a long way to go.
They show Ms. Giffords outside, the greenery of the hospital lawn in the background. She smiled directly into the camera in one, while in the other she smiled downward as she sat next to her mother, Gloria Giffords.
Ms. Giffords has been in a Houston rehabilitation facility since two weeks after the Jan. 8 shooting. Six people were killed and 13 were injured, including Ms. Giffords.
Ms. Carusone said Friday that Giffords could be released sometime this month.
She said doctors and family are considering “many factors” while making the decision to release Ms. Giffords from TIRR Memorial Hermann, the hospital where she has been undergoing daily rehabilitation.
“We’re looking at before the end of the month. We’re looking at early July,” Ms. Carusone said. “We don’t have a date.”
But in an interview with The Arizona Republic published Thursday, Ms. Carusone made clear that Ms. Giffords remains a shadow of her former self as she has difficulty stringing together sentences and relies heavily on gestures and facial expressions to communicate. She also faces some difficulty in expressing bigger, more complex thoughts, Ms. Carusone said.
“She is borrowing upon other ways of communicating. Her words are back more and more now, but she’s still using facial expressions as a way to express. Pointing. Gesturing,” Ms. Carusone said.
While Ms. Giffords’ release from the hospital would mark an important step in her recovery, she still must undergo months of outpatient rehabilitation that will include speech, occupational and physical therapy.
Since the shooting, the only time the public has gotten a glimpse of Ms. Giffords was April 27 as she boarded a plane to Florida to watch her astronaut husband Mark Kelly go into space. The grainy footage, taken from afar, showed Giffords slowly but purposefully walk up the airplane’s stairs.
The newly released photos, shot by a Tucson photographer P.K. Weis just before surgery on her skull, provide a much clearer image.
Last month as Kelly was orbiting Earth, doctors repaired Giffords’ skull, finally freeing her from a cumbersome protective helmet that her staff members say she hated.
Jared Lee Loughner, 22, has pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from the shooting and is being held at a Missouri facility. A judge declared him incompetent to stand trial, but prosecutors hope his competency can be restored so he can answer for the charges.
(SOURCE)- NY Times by Associated Press
Politic With Permiss is excited to hear of the good recovery of Representative Giffords and continues to pray for her and her family. Miracles happen!
Politic with Permiss 