... She is walking on her own, albeit tentatively, and communicating through basic sentences, gestures and facial expressions.
Ms. Giffords had surgery on May 18 to replace a portion of her skull that had been removed to relieve pressure. A permanent shunt was also implanted, doctors said, to drain fluids into her abdominal cavity via a plastic tube.
She was discharged from the hospital last week and is now living with her husband, Mark E. Kelly, at his home in League City, a Houston suburb, while she undergoes outpatient therapy. It remains too early to say, her aides said, when or if she will resume her Congressional duties. ...
... One of the places friends said she was to pass by on her driving tour of Tucson was the Shanty, a bar near the University of Arizona that is a gathering spot for local politicians and journalists.
“Coming home was the first step in her getting her life back,” said Bill Nugent, the bar’s owner, who has a large sign out front that expresses optimism about her political future. “Giffords for U.S. Senate,” it says. ...NYT
___
The trek to her hometown was one of the first things on Giffords' to-do list after being released Wednesday from a rehabilitation hospital in Houston.
Two days later, the couple - and an entourage that included Giffords' parents, one of Kelly's daughters, a private nurse and a U.S. Capitol Police security detail - were on a private jet borrowed from friends.
Before landing at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, the aircraft circled the Monument Fire near Sierra Vista, part of her congressional district.
Giffords wanted to "see firsthand the devastation down there near Fort Huachuca," Kelly said.
Once in Tucson, the couple split most of their time between Giffords' parents' house and Giffords' midtown home, he said.
On Friday night, they got Mexican takeout for dinner from Milagros Cafe at East Fort Lowell and North Country Club roads.
On Saturday afternoon, they went for a ride downtown, checking out Club Congress, the Rialto and the Fox Theatre, and then on to Giffords' new constituency office on East Fort Lowell Road.
Later Saturday, Giffords attended a reunion with her staffers ...Kelly said his wife now knows that six people died and 12 others were wounded in the Jan. 8 shooting, but she does not yet know all their identities.
She's not aware, for example, that her staffer Gabe Zimmerman and her friend, federal Judge John Roll, were among those killed.
Loved ones have been breaking news of the tragedy gradually, so as not to overwhelm her with grief during her arduous recovery... Arizona Daily Star
