Jaimee Rose's article in today's Arizona Republic manages to be encouraging and realistic regarding Rep. Giffords' progress after the January 8th shooting. As it seems, she has both come a long way and still has a long way to go:

Many other things are different since Giffords' brain was pierced by a bullet during the shootings near Tucson on Jan. 8. Her hair is short, maybe 2 inches long, says Pia Carusone, her chief of staff, so there are scars on her scalp that show through. Eventually, her hair will cover them. A thin scar across the top of her forehead is healing well and fading, and her face, though sometimes swollen, is otherwise the same as before, Carusone says.

Giffords speaks most often in a single word or declarative phrase: "love you," "awesome," even "get out" to doctors in her room at the end of a taxing day. She longs to leave the rehab center, repeating "I miss Tucson" and wheeling herself to the doors at the end of the hall to peer out. When that day comes, Giffords told her nurse, she plans to "walk a mountain."

Longer sentences frustrate Giffords. She must search her brain for the words she wants, which feels like trying to pull out the name of a familiar face you can't quite place, her doctors say. Once she builds the sentence in her mind, she speaks clearly and at a normal rate, and can offer as many words as she has the patience to string together. The doctor overseeing her rehabilitation places her in the top 5 percent of patients recovering from this injury.