This, most recent photo of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords since she was shot, was posted to her public Facebook page by her aides Sunday morning June 12, 2011. (AP Photo/PGiffords Campaign - P.K. Weis)
This, most recent photo of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords since she was shot, was posted to her public Facebook page by her aides. The woman in the background is her mother Gloria Giffords. The photo was taken May 17, 2011 at TIRR Memorial Hermann Hospital, the day after the launch of Endeavour and the day before she had her cranioplasty. (AP/Giffords Campaign)
Giffords looks remarkably well.
It's amazing that she survived that horrific shooting.
It's encouraging to see her smiling, but as aides note, her recovery is far from complete.
From the Associated Press:
Images of a smiling Rep. Gabrielle Giffords were posted Sunday on her Facebook page, two photos that show her with shorter, darker hair but few signs that she suffered a gunshot wound to the head.
The photos were taken May 17 outside the Houston rehabilitation facility where Giffords has been undergoing treatment since she was wounded five months ago at a meet-and-greet event with constituents. Six people died and a dozen others were hurt in the Jan. 8 attack in Tucson, Ariz.
Since then, access to the Arizona congresswoman has been tightly controlled. Until Sunday, no clear images had been released.
The only recent sign of Giffords came in late April, when grainy television footage showed her slowly ascending a flight of steps to a NASA plane that took her to Florida to watch her astronaut husband rocket into space. The image was so blurry that it was impossible to confirm it was Giffords until doctors did so at a news conference in mid-May.
Giffords spokesman C.J. Karamargin said staff members released the photos Sunday to help satisfy "intense interest in the congresswoman's appearance."
The timing coincides with plans to release Giffords from the hospital later this month or in early July. Her staff hopes the images will help curb unwanted photography when she begins visiting an outpatient clinic in a more public setting.
"What we wanted to avoid was a paparazzi-like frenzy," Karamargin said.
It was smart to release the photos. I'm sure there will still be a "paparazzi-like frenzy," but photographers won't be vying to get that first photo of her.
The professionally shot pictures were taken before Giffords underwent surgery to replace a piece of her skull that had been removed shortly after the shooting to allow her brain to swell. The images suggest the congresswoman is returning to her former appearance — though she still looks slightly different than before.
But the photos give little indication of Giffords' cognitive abilities — what, for example, her speech is like after being shot in the left side of the head, which controls communication. The images also provide no hints as to when, or if, she will be able to resume her job.
"There's nothing that unique about the outer presentation," said Jordan Grafman, director of the Traumatic Brain Injury Research Laboratory at the Kessler Foundation Research Center in West Orange, N.J., explaining that many brain injury patients look good within months of being hurt.
"But the image doesn't tell us the inner mental state or the brain itself, how it's functioning," said Grafman, who has not treated Giffords. "What's their social skills? Do they have a nuanced sense of humor? Can they participate in activities? All that is what's important."
Pia Carusone, Giffords' chief of staff, has indicated that while the congresswoman is able to speak and walk, she remains a shadow of her former self.
That's very disturbing - "she remains a shadow of her former self."
All along, the media kept choosing to report the "miraculous recovery" angle. If you're not familiar with traumatic brain injuries, you may have been misled by the irresponsible accounts.
Even now, with her release from the hospital coming soon, I don't think the media are placing enough emphasis on the fact that she still needs intensive therapy. She'll receive it on an outpatient basis. Leaving the hospital doesn't mean Giffords is all better.
...Of the two pictures, one is more clearly posed, that of a smiling Giffords looking directly at the camera. The left side of her head appears slightly distorted and swollen. A second photo shows Giffords in a more casual light — smiling while sitting alongside her mother, Gloria Giffords, with the hospital's greenery evident behind them.
The pictures were taken by Tucson photographer P.K. Weis.
Carusone told the Associated Press late Saturday that doctors and family were considering "many factors" while weighing when to release Giffords from the hospital. She did not elaborate.
"We're looking at before the end of the month. We're looking at early July," Carusone said. "We don't have a date."
In an interview published Thursday in the Arizona Republic, Carusone said Giffords can express her basic wants and needs, but has difficulty stringing together sentences to verbalize more complex thoughts and feelings. Giffords, she said, relies on hand gestures and facial expressions.
"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," Carusone said.
...Most cognitive recovery occurs in the first six months to a year after an injury, though it becomes less noticeable as time progresses. In the second year, progress sharply drops.
Carusone said if Giffords' recovery were to plateau now, "it would not be nearly the quality of life she had before."
"All that we can hope for is that she won't plateau today and that she'll keep going and that when she does plateau, it will be at a place far away from here," she said.
Clearly, Giffords' aides aren't attempting to distort the reality of her condition. Nonetheless, I've seen media reports failing to tell the truth. They can be extremely deceptive.
That's a disservice to the public. Such reports do nothing to advance the general public's understanding of the consequences of brain injuries.
Although Giffords' chief of staff describes her current state as a "shadow of her former self," the value of her life hasn't changed at all. Whatever her present state and eventual level of recovery is, it doesn't change the fact that she deserves respect and should be treated with dignity.
Giffords' life most likely won't be the same as before, but her life is no less precious now than it was before the shooting.
I'm praying that Giffords continues to make progress and that she regains a quality of life as close as possible to what she once had.
Video.
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