Adorable toddler has to get both her legs amputated after catching common infection

When Kory Loden noticed that her 18-month-old daughter Mady seemed extra lethargic one morning in October 2023, she assumed she may have caught the flu from her big brother.

She never suspected that her bubbly toddler would be fighting for her life in a coma just hours later.

‘She was just lethargic. Her brother had [been sick] a few days before, so I assumed that’s what she had,’ Loden, 31, from Medina, Tennessee, told the Daily Mail.

‘She was fine Monday night when she went to bed and lethargic Tuesday morning. By Tuesday night she was on her deathbed.’

Loden explained that while she initially brushed off Mady’s tiredness as a normal illness, her concern grew as the day went on and her daughter started to refuse to eat or drink.

By Tuesday afternoon, the youngster had developed a fever and her lips and feet started ‘turning purple’ so Loden decided to take her to Urgent Care.

As soon as the doctor started examining Mady, who was barely conscious at this point, they decided she would be looked after better at a hospital and called an ambulance to take her to the ER.

Loden still had no idea what was wrong with her daughter or why she had gotten so sick so quickly, and recalled feeling absolutely terrified as she sat in the ambulance.

‘I remember just shaking and holding back tears the entire way to the ER,’ she said.

‘I remember riding up front with the EMT and asking her if my daughter would be okay, and she said, “I’m going to be honest – she didn’t respond when we stuck her with the IV, and that’s not a good sign.”‘

When she got to the local hospital, Loden was told Mady had to be transported again to the nearest children’s hospital, this time via helicopter.

‘Looking back now, it all seems so surreal. The local hospital life-flighted her to the children’s hospital that was 1.5 hours from us by car. My husband and I weren’t allowed to ride with her,’ she continued. 

‘On the way to the hospital to meet Mady, they called and asked for verbal permission to resuscitate her if needed. I told them yes, of course. That was a terrifying phone call.

‘I knew by this point it wasn’t good for Mady, but that phone call I think solidified how precarious of a situation she was actually in.’

When they arrived, Loden said Mady was ‘hooked up’ to many machines and there were ‘tons’ of doctors around her.

Soon after, Loden was told Mady had to be put on life support or she ‘probably wouldn’t survive.’

While they still weren’t sure of what had caused it, doctors explained that Mady had gone into septic shock and was suffering from disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC), a ‘rare blood clotting disorder that can cause organ damage and uncontrollable bleeding,’ per My Cleveland Clinic. It’s ‘a complication of many different serious medical conditions.’

‘We were thinking she wouldn’t make it,’ admitted Loden. ‘[Even] the doctors were thinking she might not make it. Septic shock and DIC patients have like a 60-70 percent mortality rate.’

Soon after arriving at the hospital, Mady had to be rushed into emergency heart surgery after her heart started ‘inflating.’

That’s when doctors finally discovered what had caused her downward spiral.

It turns out, Mady has asplenia, which is when someone’s spleen is missing or doesn’t work. 

‘Your spleen is a vital organ in your lymphatic system. It has several important jobs. One of its roles is to protect your body from germs, like bacteria,’ My Cleveland Clinic reported. 

‘If you don’t have a spleen, your body has trouble fighting certain bacteria. This makes it more likely that you’ll get sick, and infections can be more dangerous. This can lead to severe complications.’

Loden explained that when her daughter caught her brother’s sickness – which turned out to be the common infection known as strep pneumonia – her body couldn’t fight it off due to her missing spleen, leading to the complications. 

It came as a complete shock to Loden. 

‘We had no idea she didn’t have a spleen. I had more ultrasounds [during my pregnancy] than most people do, and they never caught it. They don’t look for it on uterine ultrasounds,’ she said.

The days that followed were a ‘blur’ to Loden. Mady underwent an array of procedures, and started dialysis as her kidneys failed.

But miraculously, she survived and eventually started to improve, and six days later, she was taken off life support. 

Due to poor blood flow, Mady lost the use of her legs, and despite the doctor’s best efforts to try to ‘bring her limbs back to life,’ they decided to get her legs amputated in December of that year.

‘It was hard to swallow, obviously,’ Loden said of learning that her daughter’s legs would be removed.

‘They also cut off some fingertips … because they weren’t going to make it.’

While Loden said Mady is thriving now, nearly three years on from the ordeal, she admitted that it took quite some time for her daughter to get back to normal.

‘It was really difficult to watch. My spunky, sassy girl was mostly subdued and really didn’t talk or make eye contact with anyone [for a while],’ she shared.

Unfortunately, because of her asplenia, she is at severe risk any time she gets sick.

‘She [will be] on prophylactic antibiotics for the rest of her life in hopes to combat any sort of infection that may set on until we can get to the hospital,’ Loden added.

‘She goes to the ER every time she has a fever to try to head it off if it’s a bacterial infection. Thankfully, it’s only bacterial and only certain bacteria that can cause her to go septic because of the asplenia.’

But despite everything, Loden said Mady is doing much better now. She wears prosthetic legs, and ‘learned relatively quickly’ how to walk with her new limbs.

‘She is actually so good now. She really doesn’t remember the trauma,’ Loden revealed. 

‘She found a picture the other day of herself with legs, and she got all excited and was telling us all about it like she just discovered that she had legs before. 

‘She obviously has some limitations, but she is very good at figuring out how to do things she wants to do.’