Time for an update on Gabby Giffords progress.

Courtesy of AZ Central:

Pia Carusone knew the day would come when the questions about her boss, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, would become more indelicate.

After answering some of those questions, Carusone, Giffords' chief of staff, told me: "We want to give people a clear picture (about Giffords). It's not in anyone's interest to have anyone feel misled. But it's hard because we satisfy one person and one set of questions, and tomorrow, we're on to the next. The feeling is like it's never enough."

For example, how well is she able to communicate with them?

"We do a lot of inferring with her because her communication skills have been impacted the most," Carusone said. "If you think of it as someone who is able to communicate with you clearly, it is easy to test them. You can ask them a series of questions, and you can get clear answers back. Whereas with Gabby, what we've been able to infer and what we believe is that her comprehension is very good. I don't know about percentage-wise or not, but it's close to normal, if not normal."

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."

Is that frustrating for her?

"Absolutely," Carusone said. "When she is trying to come up with a word or a sentence and she's clearly struggling, putting everything she's got into it, and sometimes she's not successful. When she is, there's a relief that comes across her face that she has found the word. But when she can't come up with that, it is absolute frustration."

This is only a small portion of the article and I encourage everybody to read it if they want to learn more about this truly heroic woman.

While it does not appear that Rep. Giffords will return to Washington anytime soon, nobody is prepared to dismiss that possibility.  This is truly a remarkable women who suffered a horrific injury that in most cases would have turned the victim into a vegetable.  Just the fact that she has managed to come so far in such a short amount of time is amazing. However hoping for her to return to her job in Washington might be nothing more than a pipe dream.

But then again, this IS Gabby Giffords we are talking about!