By Richard Martin, Times Staff Writer
Friday, January 21, 2011
University Community Hospital therapy team leader Kavita Jain helps patient Richard Cantu, 31, stand up in the hospital’s rehabilitation unit in Tampa on Friday. Cantu was shot in the head and two of his cousins were killed on Thanksgiving.
TAMPA — Rosa Cantu knows what the family of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is going through.
Like them, she's watching a loved one recover from a gunshot to the brain.
Like them, she's measuring progress in baby steps — the moving of an arm, a smile, a single spoken word.
And like them, she's hearing doctors paint a cautious picture about the future, while she and other family members hold onto hope for a full recovery.
Cantu's son, Richard, 31, was among six men who were shot early on Thanksgiving at a home in Ruskin when a man ...