Rep. Gabrielle Giffords gave her doctors a big “thumbs-up” yesterday, another chapter in what supporters hope will be a miraculous story of survival.
Whether that story will end with a complete recovery remains uncertain. But doctors marveled at how the 40-year-old Arizona congresswoman responded to their verbal commands, wiggling her toes and holding up two fingers when they asked her to.
Her brain, ripped back to front by a 9mm slug fired at point-blank range by 22-year-old mad man Jared Lee Loughner at a Congress on Your Corner event in Tucson Saturday morning, showed no signs of swelling, said Dr. Michael Lemole, her neurosurgeon.
“We’re not out of the woods yet,” Lemole cautioned. “That swelling can sometimes take three days or five days to maximize. But every day that goes by and we don’t see an increase, we’re slightly more optimistic.”
Doctors over the past two days had Giffords taken off sedation and then asked basic commands such as: “Show me two fingers.”
“When she did that, we were having a party in there,” said Dr. Peter Rhee, trauma chief at the Arizona University Medical Center. “That’s a purposeful movement. That’s a great thing. She’s always grabbing for the tube.”
Giffords’ husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, and other family are by her side and get constant updates from doctors.
Yesterday, two specialists with extensive experience in traumatic brain injury were headed to Tucson to help consult on the case.
Seven other victims injured in the bloodbath remained hospitalized yesterday.
Giffords, who goes by “Gabby,” remained in critical condition and was breathing with the aid of a ventilator.
Surgeons removed nearly half of the congresswoman’s skull Saturday in an effort to alleviate the swelling. It can be replaced later in her recovery.
“We’re still within the window where it could go either way,” Lemole said, adding that the first 72 hours following such a traumatic injury are the most critical.
Giffords, a three-term Democrat with a history of support for the Second Amendment, was greeting constituents in a supermarket parking lot when she and the others were shot by Loughner, cops say.
She’s a well-known figure in Arizona, having been at the forefront of the state’s heated immigration battle. She’s also a second cousin to actress Gwyneth Paltrow.