I missed posting this yesterday, but I want to raise my bloggy hand to join the call for protecting the right of girls around the world to education, as part of the movement to speak out against gender bias and advocate for girls’ rights everywhere.
Read Shelby Knox’s powerful post about Malala: Where Are the Global Girl Activists?
A picture being shared around Facebook. taken in Pakistan:
I didn’t know about the other two girls who shielded her. I salute them.
The latest from the BBC is here. She’s still critical.
And a profile of her here. She was [i]11[/i] when she started her BBC Urdu diary.
Malala is being transported to the UK for more specialist treatment of her injuries.
There’s some movement in her limbs.
Fingers crossed for even more progress in her recovery, Nick.
Just saw on the morning news that Malala is now standing and take some supported steps, and communicating in writing (she still can’t speak). They have not yet replaced the bone in her skull that was removed to deal with swelling of the cerebral tissue, and are waiting to see whether that will eventually be the best option, or whether perhaps a titanium plate will be better.
From my own experience working in neurological rehabilitation, these are excellent signs, although she faces many weeks, perhaps months, of rehab in order to recover. She is extremely fortunate to be under the care of a rehab team with years of experience working with traumatic military injuries, because they will have seen it all before.
Obviously there is still some swelling in the brain and the wound has damaged her speech centers. It will be a matter of wait and see to find out how much speech comes back naturally as the swelling goes down, and how much retraining she might need to work through in order to get the brain to use other neural pathways for speech. The brain can be marvellously plastic though, especially at her age.
Still got my fingers crossed.
The news is even better than I thought – according to this Guardian article the only reason she can’t speak is because she currently requires a tracheotomy tube, but that’s only a short term need and doctors expect her to have full speech once it is removed. In fact, they expect her to make a smooth and speedy recovery.
Sounds like my sister in law after she suffered an aneurysm, she was writing on a notepad before she was talking. Malala’s got the advantage of youth, too.