It's hard not to think of the Harrison Ford movie, "Regarding Henry," which shows the rehab of a lawyer who is shot in the head on the streets of New York. I hope Gabby Giffords lucks out in her rehab specialist in the way that "Henry" did with his therapist.
What has been extraordinary in the case of Gabby Giffords has been the care she has been given all along, from the moment the 20-year-old Daniel Hernandez caught her almost as she fell.
According to AZCentral, the University of Arizona junior says he ran towards the gunshots as soon as he heard them. "I don't even know if the gunfire had stopped," he says.
Hernandez tells ABC News that he rushed to a badly wounded Giffords to help stop her bleeding. "I had to lift up the congresswoman because she was severely injured, and I wanted to make sure that she was able to breathe okay because there was so much blood."
Hernandez adds that Giffords was "alert" and "able to hold my hand when I asked her if she could hear me." While the 20-year-old says that the congresswoman was responsive, he "wasn't able to get any words from her."
"'If you can hear me Gabby just grab my hand to let me know that you're okay,'" he says he told Giffords. "It was probably not the best idea to run toward the gunshots, but people needed help." ...HuffPo
Then the team at the University of Arizona's Medical Center proved itself to be about as good as you could find anywhere.
Next lap: Houston.
She will get a bed in the most private wing of the hospital, and U.S. Capitol Police will provide added security. But when Rep. Gabrielle Giffords arrives at TIRR Memorial Hermann hospital here Friday afternoon, that's about the only special treatment doctors said they are planning for the most famous of their 119 patients.
"We don't have VIP here," Gerard Francisco, the rehabilitation center's chief medical officer, said after providing a tour to reporters Thursday.
Giffords (D-Ariz.) will get "a standard room-a hospital bed, a bathroom. It's very Spartan," Francisco said. "We don't plan to treat her any differently than we treat someone with a similar injury. It's business as usual. It's the rehabilitation program that we would provide anyone with this type of impairment." ...WaPo
Francisco, who was trained in the Philippines and who is the chief medical officer at the hospital in Houston, is what they call "guarded" as to the outcome for Rep. Giffords.
Though experts warn that Giffords could need up to three months of inpatient care, Francisco said the average stay for patients at TIRR is less than a month. He declined to estimate how long he expected Giffords to remain in the facility.
Francisco acknowledged that there is no guarantee that Giffords, or any patient who has suffered severe brain injuries, will return to full health.
"It's a function of what part of brain is damaged and the extent of the injury," he said. "Some with brain injury like this lose the ability to speak, lose the ability to understand. Their personality changes, they have problems with memory, it changes how they relate to people."
Thank you, Doctors Rhee and Emole. Thank you, Daniel Hernandez. Anticipatory thanks to Gerard Francisco. Our health care system may stink administratively and financially and politically, but the people who work in it come from just about everywhere. The whole world seems to be contributing to Giffords recovery. They make us proud -- and damn lucky.
