An Iowa mother of a newborn girl, who was struck by a softball, was able to hold her daughter for the first time on Mother's Day after doctors revealed the infant may have brain damage. On Sunday, Kassy Hovenga, held her eight-week-old baby, McKenna Hovenga, for the first time since the incident on May 2.'Kassy got a wonderful Mother's Day present today! She was able to hold McKenna for the first time in ten days!' a post on the Healing for McKenna Facebook page said.
McKenna was struck by an overthrown softball at her father's game in Shell Rock, about 95 miles northeast of Des Moines. She was being held by her mother, Kassy, when the softball hit her. McKenna was airlifted to St Mary's Hospital at Mayo Clinic for skull fractures and two brain bleeds. Mayo Clinic physicians in Rochester, Minnesota, have been balancing various medications as they treat McKenna, whose skull was fractured. According to a You Caring fundraising page, 'McKenna is currently intubated and has a feeding tube'.The You Caring fundraiser has raised more than $62,000 that will go toward McKenna's medical expenses. A post on the Healing for McKenna Facebook page said doctors have pinpointed her seizures to two areas of the brain that appear to have been damaged. Those areas are ones that are related to motor skills and development. The doctors are currently working to stabilize her seizures. The extent of any damage remains unclear.
