As one who has been following the progress made by Gabrille Giffords since the Arizona shooting in which she took a bullet in her brain, I confess my grief continues to be mixed with feelings of anger for what happened to her that day and the elements in our culture that make such horrendous events possible.
Reading E. J. Montini’s update on Giffords’ condition and the uncertainty regarding her future progress stirred up my anger again this morning.
I can be thankful Giffords is alive and for the progress she’s made so far, but I want more than that for her. Much more. And one of these days perhaps I’ll be able to forgive the perpetrator of this injustice and possibly our overly zealous gun rights lobby; I’m just not ready yet.
Montini’s report in the Arizona Republic features a dialog with Giffords' staffer Pia Carusone in which he asked some tough questions:
Who is making the decisions for the congresswoman? Is it Giffords herself or her husband, family and staff?
"It's a combination," Carusone said. "I've told her that we've been approached by every media outlet in the world, at this point, and that when she is ready, there are plenty of options for how we do it. She does not want to do that right now. And that's understandable. For someone who takes her job seriously and has a good relationship with the press and knows how important that is, to feel anything less than 100 percent is daunting. Let alone to feel what she's feeling: a real struggle and challenge with communication."
Is there a timetable established for deciding if she will remain in office?
"The only firm timetable is the legal timetable, and that is May of 2012, when petitions are due for re-election," Carusone said. "That's a firm timetable. Short of that, we'd love to know today what her life will be, what her quality of life will be, which will determine whether she'll be able to run for office and all sorts of other things involving her life. But we just don't know yet. . . .
"We're about halfway through the process that is the most important time for recovery. Patients recover for the rest of their lives, but it's the first 12 to 14 months that you make the biggest jumps. . . . In the doctors' minds, it's not even close to when you begin to make the final prognosis for the quality of her life."
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