[Chetry:] Fifty-three minutes past the hour. It's been just over weeks since Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head. And since then, her recovery from this near fatal brain injury has been nothing short of remarkable, and these are in words of her doctors. This morning, there's some more good news about Giffords' progress. And joining us from Atlanta, chief medical correspondent, our resident neurosurgeon, Sanjay Gupta. Great to see you this morning.
[Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Cnn Chief Medical Correspondent:] Morning.
[Chetry:] So every day when you hear about this, it just seems like she's leaps and bounds and her doctors have said that, as well. What is the significance of being able to mouth the lyrics to songs and some of the other things we're hearing she is doing?
[Gupta:] Let me say a couple things. First of all, the idea she's improved so quickly, Kiran, we've talked about this before. But your overall end point how much you're going to recover in the long run is really dependent on how quickly you recover in the short run. That's why they're are using this term remarkable. Her ability to mouth words like to these songs that we're hearing, "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," that's significant for a couple of reasons. She's shown that she can understand speech, she's shown that she can express herself by asking for things. Now she's actually drawing on her memory to some extent, not only the words to a song, but also the melody to a song, as well, which shows some degree of integrating all of these things together. Her reception, her expression and now drawing on previous memory. So, now you're starting to see more parts of the brain sort of working together. We also heard, incidentally, Kiran, a lot of people have been asking, you know, if you look at her now, you know, the left part of her head, the skull was removed, as you remember, Kiran, during the operation initially. We're hearing now that by the end of this month that should be placed back, as well, and giving her back a normal shaped contour to her head, Kiran.
[Chetry:] That's amazing, as well. We're taking for granted all of the physical recovery in that there's so much risk while she's there of infection and everything else. Is she going to physically look the same or at least similar?
[Gupta:] I think so. You know, right now, she probably does not. And I think that's in part why we are not seeing any pictures of her. You know, you usually have a concavity to the side of the head after someone's had this procedure done. But, you know, it may sound ironic to some extent to some people, but simply putting that bone back is more of a cosmetic procedure. I mean, she's fine otherwise and so you want to wait until someone's absolutely ready to have another operation. They say by the end of this month, she should be ready.
[Chetry:] What are there are some other questions, as well, about movement. There's a lot of talk how she could move on one side and not the other. I was reading some accounts where she's walking down the hallway, doing squats. I mean, how much of this is assisted and how much is she really doing on her own?
[Gupta:] They say she's using a shopping cart-like device, something that she can sort of hang on to as she's moving down the hallway. You know, almost since the beginning, we heard when she started getting out of bed, we heard she could bear weight on the left leg. Remember, the injury was on the right side of the brain. That controls the motor strength on the right side of the body. We heard the right leg was pretty strong, able to bear weight. We haven't heard as much about the right arm. But that physical therapy is a large part of the pretty intensive therapy she's getting now six hours a day, including trying to really build up the strength in that side of the body.
[Chetry:] Amazing. Sanjay Gupta, giving us an update on how this is going and it sounds wonderful. Thanks so much.
[Gupta:] You got it. Top stories coming up after a quick break. We'll be right back.