Giffords Showing Major Improvements
Chron.com reports:
Rep. strong>Gabrielle Giffords<, D-Ariz., continuing her rapid recovery from a gunshot wound to the forehead, is strong>speaking< "more and more every day" in response to rigorous speech therapy conducted during rehabilitation at strong>Houston<'s TIRR strong>Memorial Hermann<, according to her staff.
Press secretary C.J. Karamargin, speaking by phone from strong>Tucson, Ariz.<, told the strong>Houston Chronicle< on Wednesday that his boss had begun speaking "recently," often using more than one word. She ordered toast for breakfast one recent morning, he said.
"(She's talking) more and more every day," Karamargin said. "She is improving in all areas."
Karamargin declined to give any examples of words or phrases spoken by the congresswoman besides toast.
Giffords' apparent recovery of the ability to speak is the latest milestone in a recovery TIRR doctors have said is occurring at "lightning speed." The spoken words came about a month after she was shot during a gunman's rampage in Tucson. Six people, including a 9-year-old girl and a federal judge, were killed outside a grocery where Giffords was meeting with constituents on Jan. 8. Giffords was one of 13 injured.
The congresswoman on Jan. 26 was transferred to The Institute for Research and Rehabilitation, the Memorial Hermann Hospital System's elite rehab center, following two weeks in the intensive care unit of University Medical Center in Tucson and five days in Memorial Hermann's strong>Texas Medical Center< hospital ICU.
Memorial Hermann on Wednesday declined to make any TIRR doctors available to comment on Giffords' apparent speaking breakthrough.
