GAZETTE & HERALD: SIX months after their family was turned upside down by tragedy, the parents of Lydia Cross say she is still amazing them every day.

This week, the plucky three-year-old has been back to see the man she calls Bob the Builder, the prosthetic specialist at Dorset Orthopaedic, who fitted her with her state of the art new legs, for a few alterations.

Mum Jodie said that as Lydia's legs have grown, she needs new sockets that fit on to her thighs. They couldn't come sooner for Lydia, who is looking forward to a summer playing outside.

"Lydia amazes everyone who meets her," said Mrs Cross. "Her legs took a lot of getting used to start with, but as time has passed, she now walks very well with them as well as going down her slide, dressing up and playing with all her friends. Tony and I have encouraged her to do as much as she can normally and she never talks about what she could do before her illness.

"People also recognise her after seeing her in the Gazette and say hello. But although we are immensely proud of how well she is coping, what has happened to her means none of our lives will ever be the same again.

"Whereas we were quite a carefree family before this all happened, we now worry so much about what the future holds for her," added Mrs Cross.

Everything went wrong for the Cross family last October when their baby daughter Millie, Lydia's younger sister, contracted meningitis.

She was in intensive care for several weeks and suffered almost complete organ failure. Doctors warned the family she might not survive. She eventually pulled through and they were able to take her home.

But on the night Millie came home from hospital, Lydia developed a temperature and sickness and the nightmare began all over again.

Over that weekend, the family took her to and from Chippenham hospital but her condition was not diagnosed.

When it was discovered she had developed the potentially fatal Hib virus and then septicaemia, it was too late for doctors to save her infected legs and they were amputated below the knee.

"Lydia is coping so well, but we have to face the fact that her life will always be affected by what has happened to her," said Mrs Cross.

"Her physiotherapist said she is amazed by her, she walks well with her legs, but without them she is even better, really fast and agile she can even climb the ladder to her slide without her legs."

Lydia will need more operations as she grows because the bone in her right leg may need shaving two or three times to make sure it does not grow out of shape and affect her prosthetic legs. "We are just going to deal with things as they happen," said Mrs Cross.

"The way Tony and I look at it, there are many parents out there who have lost their children to meningitis, we are lucky that we still have both our girls."

There was good news for the family when doctors gave Lydia's kidneys the all-clear. "They had been concerned she had sustained permanent damage to her kidneys and she may have even had to have a transplant.

"But she seems fine and the doctors have told us she doesn't need to go back and see them until a year's time," said Mrs Cross.

For Lydia there is only one important date on the calendar this year and that is June 2, when she and her family will be flying to Florida for a holiday.

"A businessman who has his own travel company phoned us out of the blue and told us that he had seen a story about Lydia," said Mrs Cross.

"He said it had stopped him dead in his tracks, as he has a daughter the same age as Lydia. We were overwhelmed when he said he wanted to give us an all-expenses paid trip to the Animal Kingdom in Florida.

"Lydia is so excited about it. She said she wants to ride on a zebra and knowing her, she will probably try it.

"It will be tough as this is the first family holiday we have had since Lydia lost her legs. We will have the wheelchair to contend with and Lydia will have to depend on us much more."

The legal case being fought on behalf of the family against Kennet and North Wiltshire Primary Care Trust, over whether more could be done to save Lydia's legs is still ongoing.

"We are hopeful that it will be resolved as soon as possible so that we can plans for Lydia's future," said Mrs Cross.

"We have many years of very expensive treatment ahead of us, but we are determined that Lydia has the best medical help she can be given and that above all she leads as normal a life as we can give her.

"We have been so touched by what the readers of the Gazette have done through fundraising for the Lydia appeal and this will help us in so many ways," she added.