Gabby_ A Story of Courage and Hope - Alison Hanson [107]
By the time she arrived in Texas, she was more awake and aware. Her health was improving and her mind was clearing.
On her third day at the Texas Medical Center, doctors were able to remove the tube from her head that had been draining excess cerebrospinal fluid. They said the buildup of fluid was no longer dangerous to her. They also arranged to insert a valve into her tracheotomy breathing tube so that when she was ready, she’d be better able to talk. She was capable of breathing on her own, but doctors wanted to wean her off the tube slowly. They also said she could swallow safely, and would soon be able to eat without a feeding tube.
By Wednesday, January 26, Gabby was well enough to be transferred across the hospital complex to TIRR. She’d remain there, in rehab, for the next five months.
Physical therapy began on the very afternoon she arrived at TIRR. Gabby wasn’t speaking, but she could follow commands. Her therapists worked with her to improve her conditioning and strength. She was asked to move her good left arm and fingers, to lift her left leg, to turn her head. It was clear that she had almost no ability to move the right side of her body. Doctors called it “weakness” rather than “paralysis,” and promised that some of the loss would be recovered over time.
Within a couple of weeks, physical therapists had Gabby walking very slowly in the hallway, leading with her left leg, a brace on her right leg. They held on to her as she moved, and she often moaned in pain as she took each step. But she walked farther every day. Eventually, she’d push a shopping cart up and down the hallways.
Gabby always had to wear her helmet, which she disliked. It was uncomfortable, hot, and awkward, but she needed to have it on her head whenever she wasn’t safely in bed or sitting in her wheelchair. Her missing piece of skull—it’s called a bone flap—was about the size of a person’s hand. Besides the dura mater, the membrane closest to the skull, only a thin layer of skin, stitched together, was protecting Gabby’s brain. Though her risk of having a seizure or a blood clot decreased every day, the risk of a fall remained. If she were to hit her head, the impact could set her back—or even kill her. (The skull pieces that had been removed on January 8 were stored in a freezer, but doctors thought they were too damaged to be reinserted. They’d likely have to use a ceramic implant when it was time to surgically replace the missing section of her skull.)
Because of security concerns, Gabby had her own private room at TIRR, with the ever-present Capitol Police outside her door. It was a weird way to live, but over time, we all tried to help make her room feel like home.
Gloria and Gabby’s friend Raoul placed a rock from Arizona on the nightstand by her bed. I placed another rock from her district underneath her bed and told her that, in a way, she was in Arizona. She liked that.
Raoul and Gloria decorated the walls with photos that had been blown up into posters—our wedding, a shot of us posing at the Grand Canyon, Gabby and her Chevy Corvair. There were photos displayed of Gabby with her parents and other loved ones. She seemed to recognize every scene. Gloria, meanwhile, began passing the long hours she spent with Gabby painting portraits, in oil, of the hospital staff—doctors, nurses, therapists. It was exciting watching her work—Gabby’s bathroom was her art studio—and many of her paintings were displayed in the room. Eventually they were given to her appreciative subjects.
Between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., I’d head down to NASA to train for my space shuttle mission. Gloria and Spencer remained at the hospital, usually fourteen hours a day, and they reveled in each improvement they noticed in Gabby. On days when Gabby’s progress seemed to slow, hospital staffers encouraged her parents to be patient. Gloria said they’d try, but made no promises. “Of course we’re impatient,” she said. “We want our daughter back!”
After the shooting, we had decided not to release