And I will continue my prayers for her full recovery, so that she'll be able to deliver many more readings in Congress and in her community, and beyond.
Her ability to do so remains to be seen, of course, as the Wall Street Journal reports, "Doctors See Positive Signs as Key Test Looms":
TUCSON, Ariz. — Doctors said critically wounded U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords continued "to make all the right moves in all the right directions," but the bigger challenge ahead was her ability to speak and write.RTWT, and be sure to check the graphic of the brain's critical speech production and comprehension areas.
Ms. Giffords, who sustained a bullet wound to her brain last Saturday in a mass shooting outside a supermarket here, has been showing promising signs. One of her eyes was bandaged after being damaged by the bullet. On Wednesday, she first opened her unbandaged eye, and has opened the eye more often since.
When assisted, she has been able to sit up and dangle her legs over her bed, and has also been rubbing an eye and yawning.
"She is beginning to carry out more-complex sequences [of movement] in response to our commands, and even spontaneously," said Michael Lemole Jr., chief of neurosurgery at Tucson's University Medical Center, at a news briefing there Friday.
Neurologists who specialize in severe brain injuries such as Ms. Giffords's said each sign so far has been positive, demonstrating a general trajectory forward, yet not conclusive. But the true test will come, they said, when the breathing tube is removed.
Ms. Giffords's ability to speak hasn't yet been tested because of the tube, which could be removed very soon.
"She'll maybe say her first words and it could be a Neil Armstrong moment," said Stephan A. Mayer, chief of neuro-intensive care at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia Medical Center.
Lori A. Schutter, director of neuroscience intensive care at the University of Cincinnati Hospital, said that if Ms. Giffords "has limited speech, there could be damage to a section called Broca's area, or connections from there to other areas of the brain." Dr. Schutter said young adults and children have better chances to develop new brain pathways to improve speech and other functions, but that it might be possible for the 40-year-old lawmaker to do so as well.
It would be a key development "if we start getting signs that she is writing her husband notes," Dr. Schutter said.
Added: A report from this evening's PBS News Hour:
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