Charla Nash, Soon Will Be making Decisions

Charla Nash, the Stamford woman who was horrifically mauled by a 200-pound chimpanzee this February and is now being treated at a Cleveland medical clinic, is improving and will soon be able to decide surgery options on her own, www.friendsofcharlienash.com, a Web site run by her friends, reported Wednesday.

Those options include deciding between prosthetics or transplants, the Web site said in a mass e-mail.

Nash, a 55-year-old city resident, lost her hands, nose, lips and eyelids in a vicious attack in a North Stamford driveway that ended with police shooting and killing Travis, a male 14-year-old chimp owned by towing company owner Sandra Herold.

"Charla's strength, courage, patience and endurance will be tested and challenged as never before," the e-mail said. "Any decision will be a path of successes and failures for a very long time."

It said Nash's teenage daughter, Briana, just finished school and will visit her mother in Cleveland. It also said Nash is finally able to communicate with her brother, Steve.

Nash is coping with her life-changing injuries, the e-mail said. She is more concerned with regaining the use of her hands and mouth than her face or scalp, it said."

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