Accident victim Becca Veltum returned home for good last week follownig a final surgery.
Becca,6, was struck and critically injured by a vehicle while crossing Highway 20 between Midway Grocery and South Fork Mobile Home Park on Sept. 6 with her 10-year-old sister.
She had had been spending weekends at home and had to wear a helmet to protect her brain. Following the accident, doctors removed the forehead portion of her skull to allow her brain room to swell. That bone was returned in surgery on Oct. 18. The bone is held in place with titanium screws and clips.
“I got shots and went to sleep,” Becca said. “They put my bone back in.”
With it in place, Becca was released on Oct. 20 from Doernbecker Children’s Hospital.
The surgery lasted about two and a half hour and everything went fine, Becca’s father, William Veltum, said. “It looked like she’d gone a few bouts with Mohamed Ali because her face was all swollen.”
Recovering and back to teasing her brothers, Becca is still not supposed to run, jump rope or ride her bike. She’s back in school but only for an hour a day until her wheelchair arrives.
“She was kind of reluctant … till we started working on the Halloween book with her friends and classmates,” Veltum said. “She’ll have one-on-one tuturing when she goes half a day.”
Veltum himself will spend that time with her in class.
She still has some memory problems. She also is having a hard time using the right side of her body and will have a brace on her right leg.
The stitches from her surgery come out this week. She goes back to Legacy Emanuael Hospital in Portland next month for followup. If therapy is necessary, she will do that in Corvallis.
“We’ve got to watch it and make sure it doesn’t get infected,” Veltum said. “If it does, they put in plastic.”
Having Becca home is “a whole lot of relief,” Veltum said. “She’s back to her old self. I think, unfortunately, this is a lesson for all parents to be careful of their children, what they’re doing. Watch them carefully no matter how old they are.”