'Celebrate the little things,' survivor advises

Jackie Pflug of Eden Prairie knows better than most people what a tough road to recovery Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has ahead of her.

Like the Arizona congresswoman, Pflug was shot in the head at close range, and survived.

Pflug's well-documented story is at least as dramatic as the tragedy that recently took place in a Tucson parking lot.

In 1985, Pflug, then a 30-year-old teacher at the American School in Cairo, found herself on a hijacked EgyptAir flight. When the plane was forced to land in Malta, the terrorists started executing passengers.

Pflug was shot in the back of her head and thrown to the tarmac. As she played dead, she could feel rainwater seeping into the wound. It was five hours before a team that had delivered food to the plane put her on a stretcher headed for the morgue as Pflug, who wasn't sure whether they were friends or foes, continued to be still.

Then they saw her breathe.

At the hospital -- primitive by U.S. standards -- doctors removed bone shards and the bullet, which had shattered the back of her skull and lodged above her right ear.

Now a successful motivational speaker, Pflug (www.jackiepflug.com) knows that Giffords' permanent scars might go beyond the mental and physical.

"It's a double-edged sword," Pflug said in a phone interview from Houston, where she was visiting her father. "There's the mental piece, but there's also the emotional piece. I was afraid all the time. Afraid to leave my house, afraid I would be gunned down. I couldn't trust. I still have issues with that."

Pflug, now 56, said that she's not keeping constant tabs on Giffords' progress, which has been called miraculous, but "really feels" for her.

"It is not an easy road. But what she has going for her is the 25 years of advances in research since I was shot."

If she could give any advice based on what she learned the hard way, it would be this:

Despite her injuries, Pflug was luckier than most of her fellow travelers. After Egyptian commandos stormed the plane, 59 of the 90 passengers were dead, including all the terrorists, except the one who had shot her.

A long road back

In the days after the shooting, Pflug said her short-term memory was virtually nonexistent.

"The nurse said, 'Go brush your teeth,' and I had to ask her to say each word slowly, one at a time, so I could process it. I would think, I know the word 'go,' but I can't pull it up, the meaning."

She no longer struggles with language to this degree, she said, " but I have to consciously work when people talk to me and repeat every word in my head. Tricky ones like 'extraordinary' take longer. "

You'd never guess that about Pflug now. The mother of a 12-year-old son and married to her second husband, Jim, she's often on the road as a motivational speaker and the author of "Miles to Go Before I Sleep," an account of her ordeal. In 2003, she conquered colon cancer.

What most people don't realize, she said, is the considerable amount of concentration still required for her to accomplish things most of us take for granted.

"You might think going up and down a flight of seven stairs is so darn easy," she said. "But this is the tedious part of my life. I put my foot on the first step and my eyes are scanning to make sure there are no pebbles or kinks in the carpet so I won't trip. Then the next step, I have to do it again. By the end of the day I'm exhausted. I need at least 10 hours of sleep a night so my brain can rest."

A different person

In the years after her recovery, Pflug said she would hear from people who said she wasn't the same Jackie they knew. She struggled with how to answer and would tell them to be patient, that the old Jackie would be back.

A student once asked Pflug what a typical good day was for her before her injury and what one is now. The old Jackie used to love getting everything done on her list, no matter what it took.

"Now I see how superficial that is," she said. "Now I sit at the edge of my bed every night and write in what I call my grateful journal. I ask myself, did you live your life with integrity today? Were you honest and open? Did you laugh a lot? This happens to people who have a tragedy -- it moves you to a different plane."

The terrorist who shot Pflug is now serving a life sentence in a U.S. federal prison.

"For years, I wanted to call him and tell him how horrible my life is, to call the prison ... and make sure he was not a happy man," she said. "But you have to cross over, to let go, and eventually I was able to do that."