Doctors say Rep. Giffords nearing rehabilitation phase

Doctors for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) said Monday she is nearing the rehabilitation phase of her recovery.

Giffords, who suffered a gunshot wound to the head in the Jan. 8 mass shootings in Arizona, has been making what her doctors consider very rapid progress.

{mosads}University Medical Center Chief of Neurosurgery Dr. Michael Lemole said Giffords underwent a procedure on Saturday to repair “orbital roof fractures” in her eyes and eye sockets. A separate procedure was also performed to remove Giffords’s breathing tube. Doctors gave her a feeding tube for nutrition.

The pace of Giffords’s steady progress has continued, Lemole said, and potentially dangerous brain swelling has not increased.

“Every sign on the CAT scans and just on her physical examinations suggest that we’re going in the right direction at this point,” Lemole said.

“I’m happy to say that within a few hours of the surgery she was waking up, and through the weekend she came back to the same baseline she had been before the surgery, that same level of interaction she had had with us,” Lemole said. “And that’s all very good.”

Lemole said doctors are preparing Giffords for the third phase of her recovery, the rehabilitation process.

“She tolerated those procedures well, in fact we did them right before Dr. Lemole was finished with his procedure,” Dr. Randall S. Friese, a UMC surgeon said.

Giffords opened her eyes last week during a visit from close friends and colleagues, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Doctors have said Giffords’s vision was probably blurry, akin to the first few minutes of waking up in the morning. Lemole said Monday doctors believe her sight continues to improve as well.

“Our suspicion is that she can see something,” Lemole said.

The next big milestone in Giffords recovery is getting to the rehabilitation phase, Lemole said. He added that further down the road Giffords will have to undergo a skull repair procedure.

“The key we’re trying to get her to is rehabilitation, so we can get her to the next phase of her recovery,” Lemole said.

Lemole said that Giffords’s progress suggests that many of her “higher levels of function are somewhat preserved.”

Giffords’s condition was upgraded from “critical” to “serious” over the weekend.

In a previous press briefing, Lemole said Giffords’s progress in her recovery and survival was nothing short of miraculous. He said Monday her progress continues to best be described that way.

“That word still holds well,” Lemole said.