SALON

Monday, Feb 14, 2011 12:41 PM UTC

Gabrielle Giffords now able to hold conversations with husband

The Arizona congresswoman continues incredible recovery and can now speak to her husband

By

Topics: Gabrielle Giffords, Guns,

Gabrielle Giffords now able to hold conversations with husbandFILE - In this Jan. 5, 2011 file photo, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., takes part in a reenactment of her swearing-in, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Experts say recovery for Giffords will be a long, tough journey. Patients can make remarkable progress. But experts caution that they shouldn't expect to return to exactly the way they were before, and it’s too early to know if Giffords might be able to return to Congress. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)(Credit: AP)

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ husband says he has been able to have conversations with his wife, and she continues to be positive and is working very hard at her recovery.

Mark Kelly said in an interview broadcast Monday on NBC that he can ask her questions and she can respond, and he says “the communication is coming back very quickly.”

He says she is trying so hard that her speech therapist, who only a few days ago was trying to get her to talk more, is now asking Giffords to slow down and make sure she hears the question before giving an answer.

Giffords was shot in the head Jan. 8 while meeting with constituents outside a Tucson grocery store. She began intensive rehabilitation at a Houston hospital late last month.

Giffords’ efforts to relearn how to speak have also included mouthing song lyrics, such as “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and “Happy Birthday to You,” as friends and family sang along, a newspaper reported late Sunday.

Giffords also briefly spoke with her brother-in-law Scott Kelly by telephone Sunday afternoon as he orbited aboard the International Space Station, The New York Times reported on its website.

“She said, hi, I’m good,” her chief of staff, Pia Carusone, told the paper. He is the brother of Giffords’ husband, astronaut Mark Kelly.

She has also been receiving bedside briefings from aides on the recent uprising in Egypt and on last week’s decision by Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona not to seek re-election,

“We tell her everything that’s going on,” Carusone said. “Don’t get the idea she’s speaking in paragraphs, but she definitely understands what we’re saying and she’s verbalizing.”

The Times reported that an e-mail sent to friends about a week ago by Giffords’ mother said that Giffords has been doing squats and repetitive motions to build her muscles and walking through the hospital’s halls while holding onto a cart.

The 40-year-old Giffords has beaten one of her nurses at tic-tac-toe and has changed from “kind of a limp noodle” to someone who is “alert, sits up straight with good posture,” the e-mail from Gloria Giffords said.

Doctors said in late January that they planned to insert a speaking valve into her tracheostomy — a tube inserted into Giffords’ throat to assist her breathing immediately after the shooting. Her doctors have not said whether that procedure took place or whether the tube was removed since she no longer needs it.

Rehabilitation specialists say brain injury patients who regain speech typically begin to do so about four to six weeks after the incident. Several news organizations reported last week that Giffords asked for toast with her breakfast one recent morning.

More Associated Press.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 4 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Brad Pitt keeps breaking his silence on how boring marriage to Jennifer Aniston was
20 points21 points | 26 comments
vote
GOP opposes right to vote - Iraq's new constitution has something America's doesn't: The right to vote. Republicans want to keep it that way
20 points21 points | 5 comments
vote
Marijuana opponents’ new plan: Kill First Amendment After failing to stop Colorado from legalizing it, pot foes now want to criminalize drug images and media content
14 points15 points | 1 comment
vote
The right to vote is the foundation of any democracy. Yet most Americans do not realize that we do not have a constitutionally protected right to vote.
12 points13 points | 5 comments
vote
Report: Nearly a quarter of all Americans struggle to afford food
18 points19 points | 5 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations