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Sanjay, you perform these surgeries every week. you did a demonstration of how much of her skull had to be originally removed to save her life. i want to take a quick look at that. >> one thing to keep in mind, the brain, unlike other organs of the body, if it starts to swell, it's got nowhere to go. it can only go downwards and that's called a herniation. the second part is to connect these holes. this is the last cut now we're making. one of the things that's really important is when you take this bone out, you want to make sure that you're protecting the brain underneath. go ahead and lift ...

The big step forward in the recovery of congresswoman gabrielle giffords. you can recall, of course, she was shot in the head at a constituent meeting in arizona back in january. severely wounded, six people were killed in that attack. today, giffords underwent surgery to replace a piece of her skull that doctors removed because of brain swelling. a hospital says she's doing well tonight. i spoke to dr. sanjay gupta about the procedure a short time ago. sanjay, you perform these surgeries every week. you did a demonstration of how much of her skull had to be originally removed to save her life...

They essentially just model the same contour and go ahead and place it back as you see there. i don't know if you can see this around the edges, there is these little plates with tiny little screws. two screws in the bone graft itself and two screws back in original skull. and that's what holds it in place. they close the skin over it and that's the operation. >> that's incredible. you spent time with her doctors. do they think she's going to regain enough function, can she return to congress? >> i spoke to many of her doctors, including the ones that originally treated her. the answer they al...

Opened it, it was on the media and i spoke to human rights organizations about what happened to me. and i'm happy for that. i call on all girls, not just in libya, but in the whole world, to speak out and not be afraid. >> reporter: nic robertson, cnn, doha, qatar. coming up, an update on gabrielle giffords's recovery. she had surgery on her skull. dr. sanjay gupta is going to join us and show you the procedure of how they take off part of the skull. it's something sanjay does quite frequently. and later, new revelations about arnold schwarzenegger's -- well, the woman he had a child with....

But to your point, the only thing protecting the underlying brain now is that layer of skin. the bone is gone. so if a person were to fall or something were to injure this area of the head, that would be a problem. a lot of times people will wear helmets to protect that part of the head. but people can walk around with it. >> so during her surgery, did they put back the original piece of bone? >> in fact, that original piece bone, what they were concerned about, they were concerned it may have risk of infection. so what they did is created a bone substitute. it's got the same consistency of bo...