First photos of Gabby Giffords since the shooting

Giffords

Giffords and her mother.

Except for the hair color and style, it's hard to tell from the photos how severely Gabrielle Giffords was injured in the Arizona shooting. The AP provides the source of the recent photos and other information:

PHOENIX (Associated Press) -- The first photos of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords since she was shot in the head in a mass shooting in Tucson about five months ago were released early Sunday.

The photos appeared on her Facebook page.

The  Facebook photos, taken May 17 outside her Houston hospital, are the first clear snapshots of Giffords since the shooting five months ago during a constituent meet-and-greet in a Safeway parking lot in Tucson.

The photos showed how far she has come since she was wounded in the left side of her forehead, but her spokeswoman, Pia Carusone, has cautioned that Giffords still has a long way to go in her recovery.

They show the congresswoman outside, the greenery of the hospital lawn in the background. She smiled directly into the camera in one, while in the other she smiled downward as she sat next to her mother, Gloria Giffords.

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