TUCSON, Ariz. – Gabrielle Giffords on Thursday felt the sunshine on her face for the first time since the shooting, as doctors prepared her to leave behind the Arizona hospital where she dazzled them with her rapid recovery.

Her next stop will be a Houston rehab center, where she will face an even more arduous task: Getting life back to normal.

Her husband said he’s hoping she’ll make a full recovery, calling her “a fighter like nobody else that I know.”

The doctors who will help her offered a more sober outlook.

“Not everyone always gets 100 percent restoration, but we help them to get to a new normal,” said Carl Josehart, chief executive of the rehab hospital that will be the Arizona congresswoman’s home for the next month or two.

Giffords is recovering from a bullet wound to the brain, but has been making progress nearly every day.

Late Thursday, trauma surgeon Dr. Peter Rhee said staff at University Medical Center in Tucson helped Giffords stand and get into a wheelchair. They then took her to a deck at the hospital, where she breathed in the fresh air and felt the sun.

“I saw the biggest smile she could gather,” Rhee said, noting that Giffords loves the outdoors. “We are very happy to have her enjoying the sunshine of Arizona.”

Earlier, doctors said she scrolled through an iPad, picked out different colored objects and moved her lips. They are unsure whether she is mouthing words, nor do they know how much she is able to see.

Her husband, Houston-based astronaut Mark Kelly, believes she has tried to speak and can recognize those around her.

Giffords is expected to be moved today, traveling by ambulance to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base with an escort from a group of motorcycle riders from a Veterans of Foreign Wars post who know her.

Kelly; Rhee; Giffords’ mother, Gloria; an intensive care unit nurse and Giffords’ chief of staff will be among those on the medical flight to William P. Hobby Airport in Houston.