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Mark Kelly, stands with his wife Gabrielle Giffords as she looks from her bed at the Santa Catalina Mountains while on an outdoor deck at University Medical Center in Tucson, Arizona in January. AP Photo/Office of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords
Gabrielle Giffords
Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords faces uncertain future as recovery from shooting continues
A revealing interview with the Arizona politician’s chief of staff paints a much less sunnier picture then many in the media had previously reported about Giffords’ recovery.
THE US CONGRESSWOMAN who was shot at point-blank range in the head at a public event in March in which six other people were killed, including a nine-year-old girl, is likely to spend the rest of her life recovering from her brain injuries.
Despite initial media reports of Gabrielle Giffords making a remarkable recovery, her chief of staff has given a revealing interview to The Arizona Republic newspaper.
In the wide-ranging interview Pia Carusone says that it is difficult to give people a “clear picture” about Giffords recovery and stated that there was still some time to go before a final prognosis could be made on Giffords’ quality of life, a life which will be affected forever by the shooting.
In the interview she admits that Giffords is continuing to have difficulty speaking and often resorts to pointing and gesturing to get her statements across.
Pia Carusone revealed:
When she is trying to come up with a word or a sentence and she’s clearly struggling, putting everything she’s got into it, and sometimes she’s not successful.When she is, there’s a relief that comes across her face that she has found the word. But when she can’t come up with that, it is absolute frustration.”
Carusone said that Giffords was nowhere near close to returning to her work in the US House of Representatives and admitted that the future looks uncertain ahead of next year’s re-election for her seat which must be determined by May.
We’d love to know today what her life will be, what her quality of life will be, which will determine whether she’ll be able to run for office and all sorts of other things involving her life. But we just don’t know yet. . . .
Jared Lee Loughner is suspected of having carried out the shooting on 8 January but last month a US federal judge ruled that the 21-year-old was mentally incompetent to stand trial, putting the criminal case against him on hold indefinitely.
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