Gabby Giffords's chief of staff on her progress: Steady, but slow

Does her struggle to communicate mean that she’s not using complete sentences?

“Exactly,” Carusone said. “She is borrowing upon other ways of communicating. Her words are back more and more now, but she’s still using facial expressions as a way to express. Pointing. Gesturing. Add it all together, and she’s able to express the basics of what she wants or needs. But, when it comes to a bigger and more complex thought that requires words, that’s where she’s had the trouble.”…

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Given all that, what is the blunt assessment of Giffords, right now, five months after having been shot in the head?

“She’s living. She’s alive. But if she were to plateau today, and this was as far as she gets, it would not be nearly the quality of life she had before,” Carusone said. “There’s no comparison. All that we can hope for is that she won’t plateau today and that she’ll keep going and that when she does plateau, it will be at a place far away from here.”

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