The bullet that hit Malala, according to doctors who are treating her, pierced the skin just behind her left eye, traveled along the exterior of her skull, nicked her jawbone, went through her neck and lodged in the muscle just above her left shoulder blade. Surgeons in Pakistan removed a section of her skull during an operation on Oct. 10 and embedded it in the flesh of her abdomen; as long as it’s inside her body, it will likely remain viable until her doctors decide it is time to take off the titanium plate and patch her skull back together. She will probably face several more months of rehabilitation. Doctors treating her at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham do not expect her to suffer permanent brain damage.
Besides her call to Ayesha Mir, she is showing other small but telling signs of wanting to resume her role as an activist. The first pictures taken of her after the shooting showed a powerless victim of violence: on her back, swollen, possibly dying. That didn’t happen again. For subsequent photos released after her surgery, friends say, she insisted that she be photographed with a book in hand and her headscarf carefully draped to hide any signs of damage — both as a nod to tradition and so that supporters would know that her priorities had not changed.
Even as she quietly recovers, her story has lit a fire. Queen Elizabeth Hospital has been flooded with gifts and cards from all over the world and donations now totaling $13,700 for Malala and her family. Meanwhile, a group of graduate students in the U.S. has teamed up with a Yousafzai family friend to raise almost $50,000. In the days immediately following the shooting, several charities and NGOs received boosts in donations directed toward girls’ education in Pakistan. And on Dec. 10, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari announced the establishment of a $10 million education fund in Malala’s name.
Malala also now has numerous powerful supporters, including a group of well-connected people like Megan Smith, a vice president at Google, and Mark Kelly, an astronaut and the husband of former Congresswoman and shooting survivor Gabby Giffords, who have helped established the Malala Fund, which will offer grants to organizations and individuals working in education. The plan is for Malala, when she’s better, to sit on the board along with her father and make decisions about who should receive the grants.
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