Gabrielle Giffords says she has no memory of the day she was shot point-blank through the head while meeting with voters in an Arizona supermarket parking lot.
The Democratic congresswoman learned only later from her astronaut husband, Mark Kelley, that six people were killed in the January 8 rampage, including a federal judge, a nine-year-old girl and a member of her staff.
"Tough, tough, tough," Giffords told Diane Sawyer from America's ABC network in her first television interview, which aired on Monday.
Smiling and alert, the congresswoman often responded to questions with one word answers and her husband acknowledged she has difficulty summoning the words to express her thoughts.
The hour-long show, however, showed home video that tracked her struggle to recover from a gunshot wound that ran the length of her brain, and the remarkable progress she has made relearning to walk, form words and even smile.
Asked if she ever gets angry at what happened to her, she responded: "No. No. No," adding with a shrug, "Life."
Kelly, who retired from NASA after leading the US agency's second last shuttle mission earlier this year, has also written a book about his wife's recovery, entitled Gabby: A Story of Hope and Courage, which is set to be released this week.
In it, Giffords says she wants to return to congress and to work for the American people if she can.
"I will get stronger," she writes.
"I will return."
"She doesn't give up," Kelly said.
"If that's what she wants, that's what I want for her. You know, I think she has the right to a chance to recover. She was elected by a lot of people who voted for her in Arizona. When she knows she's ready, she'll make the decision."
Asked in the interview if she wanted to go back to congress, Giffords responded that she wanted to get "better".
The suspected gunman, Jared Loughner, 22, has pleaded not guilty to the Tucson shooting, which shocked the country and briefly united a deeply divided congress in dismay over the bloodletting.
Giffords made a dramatic return to the House of Representatives on August 1 to vote on a controversial debt compromise, drawing a standing ovation from Democratic and Republican members.
