It almost killed her, and even though she survived the disease, she lost her kidneys, her spleen , the hearing in her left ear, and both of her legs below her knees. Purdy says that when she finally left the hospital, she felt like she "had been pieced back together like a patchwork doll." she received prosthetic legs, but they were clumsy and heavy. At first, it was hard for her to imagine how she would learn to walk again, and even harder to imagine that one day she would be able to fly down mountains on her snowboard and travel around the world