Christa Pike seeing 'remarkable physical recovery' but cognitive challenges: Lawyers

She is "very traumatized" following the botched execution, her attorney said.

Christa Pike has made a "remarkable physical recovery" in the days since she regained consciousness following her botched execution in Tennessee, though "there's a lot of cognitive uncertainty left," her attorney told ABC News on Thursday.

"We're not sure exactly of the long-term effects, but she's clearly cognitively not quite back to normal and may have a long ways to go," one of her attorneys, Stephen Ferrell with Federal Defender Services of Eastern Tennessee, told ABC News. "There's a lot of psychological trauma that she's going through and still suffering through."

Pike, the lone woman on Tennessee's death row, was sentenced to death after being convicted of the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer . Her attempted execution by lethal injection came after a series of last-minute legal challenges.

She survived being administered two lethal doses of pentobarbital and was hospitalized following the failed Sept. 30 execution in Nashville, her attorneys said. She was initially on a ventilator following the execution attempt before regaining consciousness on Tuesday, her attorneys said.

"She's very traumatized, having gone through this process," Ferrell said. "And of course, we're talking about a person who suffered a life of trauma."

Ferrell said Pike is thinking about her victim's family and "wonders what they've been going through and how awful this must be."

Pike's attorneys said in a statement Thursday she has had "cognitive challenges with concentration and memory," and that her doctors have advised that "it may take months to fully understand whether she sustained lasting cognitive injuries."

Ferrell added, "It's that sort of starting a sentence and losing track of where she was going. It's not that she's unaware, but that she doesn't hold the thought very easily."

Pike is walking with assistance around her hospital room, has started to get a regular diet and her lungs are clear, though she continues to experience pain from burns on her arms, her attorneys said Thursday.

"These are some pretty severe burns, such that when she was trying to sign some papers, she was having a hard time holding a pen, writing her signature," Ferrell said. "How long that will take to heal is still kind of unknown because this isn't a very common injury that doctors see, but they do see a significant amount of tissue damage around the injection sites."

Pike was believed to have been brain dead and was going to be taken off her life support the day that she woke up "to the shock of everyone," one of her attorneys, Randy Spivey with the Tennessee Office of the Post Conviction Defender, told reporters Wednesday.

Spivey said he was not in the room at the time when Pike woke up, but he believes the first thing she said was, "Where am I and who are you?"

"There's still a lot of cognitive confusion," Spivey said during a press briefing. "I think she is angry and confused about everything right now."