After a nearly fatal infection, doctors thought a toddler's leg needed to be amputated. Her mom fought for another option, and her limb was saved.

• After Macie Steele delivered twins at 26 weeks, her daughter caught a life-threatening infection.
• The infection destroyed her left hip joint, and doctors said amputation was the best choice.

One day Macie Steele went to visit her daughter Kendall in the neonatal intensive-care unit. Immediately she feared something was wrong with the baby. But nurses brushed her aside, saying Kendall just had blood work done that day and was fine — or as fine as a baby born at 26 weeks could be.

But hours later, Steele's intuition was proven right when Kendall showed signs of infection. For weeks, infection ravaged Kendall's tiny body, while doctors struggled to figure out the cause. Kendall spent 10 days on life support and was on so many medications that she didn't look like a baby. She looked like a yellow ball, Steele told Insider, with just her little nose recognizable.

Finally, doctors realized Kendall had an infection in her PICC line, a catheter that gives access to the large veins by the heart. One day, Kendall's eyes fluttered, and Steele realized her daughter was going to live. After eight months in the hospital, Kendall was discharged, weighing only 4 pounds. That was just the beginning of the challenge she'd face.

Doctors said she would need her leg amputated

Though Kendall had come back from the brink of death, she had lasting impacts from her infection. She was legally blind in one eye, and the infection had destroyed her left hip and hip socket, leaving her unable to walk.

Steele visited three hospitals in Utah, where she lives. All of them recommended amputating Kendall's left leg, sooner rather than later so she would never remember having it. But Steele just couldn't agree.

"It was our gut, plain and simple," she said.

When one of Kendall's therapists told Steele to look into the Paley Orthopedic & Spine Institute in West Palm Beach, Florida, Steele felt relief, then anger.

"I was so furious," she said. "There was another option. Why didn't anyone say it's a big wide medical world, look elsewhere?"

A long surgery to save Kendall's leg

Within hours, Steele had booked a consultation with Dror Paley, an expert on limb lengthening and reconstruction. A few weeks later she flew to Florida with Kendall. Immediately, Paley told Steele there was a 100% chance that Kendall would walk on her own two feet.

"There is no question that modern prosthetics are remarkable," Paley told Insider. "But most people would rather have their own foot on the ground. Quality of life is frequently better with your own limb."

At 2 ½, Kendall underwent a nine-hour surgery to reconstruct her hip joint and femur. Because of COVID-19, Steele wasn't allowed in the hospital before the surgery. She rocked Kendall on the curb until a sedative kicked in, then handed her to a nurse.

"That was the hardest thing I've ever had to do," she said.

Today, Kendall rides horses and dances

After the surgery, Kendall started intensive physical therapy, where she learned how to walk. Kendall had told her doctor she wanted to do ballet, and that became the goal of her therapy. Soon she was standing with her walker, raising her toes in a tutu.

Kendall had two follow-up surgeries, but today she is able to walk unassisted and rides barrel-racing horses with her family.

Paley says cases like Kendall's are difficult. They highlight the fact that patients and their parents often have to ask questions again and again to get all the options.