TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) - An ambulance carried Rep. Gabrielle
Giffords along a route lined with well-wishers holding flags Friday,
taking the congresswoman to a plane that will fly her to a Houston rehab
hospital and her next step in recovery.

It’s the first time
Giffords left the Tucson hospital since she was brought there with a
gunshot wound to the head nearly two weeks ago, and people came to see
her off with signs that read “Get well Gabby.”

“We want to be here
to help her and show her a good farewell, and hope that she has a great
recovery,” said Al Garcia, a Marine veteran who came on his Harley
Davidson motorcycle. “It’s through all of these prayers that she’s
leaving in just two weeks.”

Giffords is traveling to Davis-Monthan
Air Force Base with an escort from a group of motorcycle riders from a
Veterans of Foreign Wars post who know her. From there, she’ll be taken
by medical flight to a Houston airport, then moved by helicopter to the
ICU at Texas Medical Center, where she’ll be evaluated before going to
the center’s rehabilitation hospital, TIRR Memorial Hermann. U.S.
Capitol police arrived Thursday afternoon to set up extra security
measures at the 119-bed facility.

Giffords husband, Houston-based
astronaut Mark Kelly, tweeted Friday: “GG going to next phase of her
recover today. Very grateful to the docs and nurses at UMC, Tucson PD,
Sheriffs Dept….Back in Tucson ASAP!”

Kelly said he hopes she’ll make a full recovery.

A
gunman shot Giffords and 18 other people Jan. 8 as she met with
constituents outside a grocery store in Tucson. All other survivors have
been released from the hospital.

Giffords has been making progress nearly every day in her recovery from a bullet wound to the brain.

Doctors
ticked off other markers of her continuing improvement: She scrolled
through an iPad, picked out different colored objects and moved her
lips. They are unsure whether she is mouthing words, nor do they know
how much she is able to see.

“Not everyone always gets 100 percent
restoration, but we help them to get to a new normal,” said Carl
Josehart, chief executive of the rehab hospital that will be the Arizona
congresswoman’s home for the next month or two.

Dr. Gerard Francisco, the hospital’s chief medical officer, will coordinate her care.

“It’s going to be a very big team that will address different impairments, but they will have to work together,” he said.

First,
they’ll check her vital signs — make sure her blood pressure and heart
rate are good. Then specialists ranging from physical and occupational
therapists to speech therapists and psychologists will give a slew of
tests to see what she can and cannot do.

The strength of her legs
and her ability to stand and walk. The strength of her arms, and whether
she can brush her teeth or comb her hair. Whether she can safely
swallow on her own. How well she thinks and communicates — not just her
ability to speak but also to understand and comprehend, Francisco said.

It’s
unclear if she is able to speak. And while she is moving both arms and
legs, it’s uncertain how much strength she has on her right side; the
bullet passed through the left side of her brain, which controls the
right side of the body.

Giffords will stay at Memorial Hermann
until she no longer needs 24-hour medical care — the average is one to
two months. Then she can continue getting up to five hours a day of
physical and other rehab therapies on an outpatient basis, Josehart
said.

“It’s hard to speculate on the trajectory or course that any one patient will have,” he said.

Despite the steady progress, Giffords has a long road to recovery. Doctors are not sure what, if any, disability she will have.

Sometimes, areas of the brain that seem damaged can recover, said Mark Sherer, a neuropsychologist at the rehab center.

“Some
of the tissue is temporarily dysfunctional, so the patient appears very
impaired very early on after the injury,” but may not be permanently
damaged, he said.

A gunman shot Giffords and 18 other people Jan. 8
as she met with constituents outside a grocery store in Tucson. Six
people died and the others wounded. All survivors, except Giffords, have
been released from hospitals.

The suspect in the attack, Jared Loughner, 22, of Tucson, is being held in federal custody.

“The
last 12 days have been extraordinarily difficult for myself, my family,
but not only us,” Kelly said. “I think it’s been very difficult for the
city of Tucson, southern Arizona and our country.

Kelly added
that Giffords would be proud of the way Tucson has responded. Memorials
continued to grow Thursday outside the hospital, in front of her office
and at the scene of the shooting.

“I know one of the first things
Gabby is going to want to do as soon as she’s able to is start writing
thank you notes,” he said.

Medical Writer Marilynn
Marchione and Ramit Plushnick-Masti reported from Houston. AP aerospace
writer Marcia Dunn contributed to this story from Cape Canaveral, Fla.