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Malala Yousafzai was glad to hear that her long ordeal of surgeries will soon be over. Just two more to go, doctors in Britain say, according to CNN. 

She will receive a titanium plate in the coming days, to cover an opening in her skull, and an inner ear implant.

A gunman shot the teenage activist in the head and neck in October as she rode home from school in Pakistan's Swat Valley.

Islamist extremists from Tehrik-e-Taliban intended to kill her for taking a stand for the right of girls to get an education. The terrorists have said they will target her again.

The 15-year-old's brain swelled dangerously days after the shooting, so doctors in Pakistan extracted a section of her skull about the size of a hand. Otherwise, the pressure in her cranium would have caused severe brain damage, likely killing her.

"There is no doubt that the surgery performed in Pakistan was life-saving," Dr. Dave Rosser, medical director of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, UK, said Wednesday at a news conference.

Malala has made impressive strides and faced her medical treatment with bravery, Rosser said.

"She's very lively. She's got a great sense of humor," he said. She is aware of her high profile in the world and what that could mean for her safety.

"She remains incredibly cheerful, incredibly determined and incredibly determined to speak for her cause," Rosser said.

With the patch of skull missing, Malala is limited in what she can do. Her brain is vulnerable to injury, if she bumps her head in the wrong way. Only her skin and soft cranial tissues stand between the outside world and her brain, and that's not enough.

Doctors could have covered the breach with the original piece of her skull, which she has carried under her skin since October, where a surgeon in Pakistan implanted it for safe keeping.

That's a common procedure to preserve bone fragments for later use, Rosser said.