Gabrielle Giffords' First Post-Attack Photos

Photos of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was critically injured earlier this year in the Tucson mass shootings, show, were published Sunday on the Arizona politician’s Facebook page. Giffords looks very different – her hair is cropped short, and she’s wearing glasses – but is smiling and confident despite a months-long ordeal. The two pictures posted on Giffords’ Facebook page show her by herself and with her mother. Remarkably, the photos were taken in May, the day before Giffords had a crucial operation to implant a custom-fitted piece of plastic in her skull. The plastic replaced an area of Giffords’ skull that physicians had removed to allow for swelling of the brain. Just the day before, she’d been in Florida to see her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, lift off on the last mission of the space shuttle Endeavour.

Photographer P.K. Weis, of SouthwestPhotoBank.com, took the pictures with Giffords’ permission. Weis, a longtime photographer at the now defunct Tucson Citizen newspaper, also photographed Giffords with her mother Gloria. Giffords may be released soon from TIRR Memorial Rehabilitation Hospital in Houston. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fl., a friend of Giffords, said Sunday on Meet The Press that Giffords was making “remarkable progress.”