A toddler lost his fingers and toes to sepsis after falling unconscious at home.
Jakub Kolek is now unable to walk after the digits turned black and "dropped off" his body.
He was fell unconscious at home at 18 months and was dashed to hospital.
Doctors at Edinburgh's Royal Hospital for Sick Children gave him injections but his health deteriorated.
His mum Karina, 30, said."While he was in hospital, his fingers went black and cold, we were told that they had died and most of them had to be cut off."
"The same thing happened to his feet and he lost all of his toes and the tissue in his feet and legs were badly damaged."
Jakub was diagnosed with sepsis and now, two years on, is facing the gruelling effects of the life-changing condition.
Jakub's family, of Wester Hailes, Edinburgh, are trying to raise £60,000 for an operation to help him walk.
His 37-year-old dad, Pawel, said: "He would try and try to walk but we could see he was in pain after just a few steps.
"When we go to the playground with him and his sister, he tries to run on his feet but always falls over and gets left behind.
"He ends up in so much pain that he has to ask us to carry him, and he gets very frustrated by this as he is an active boy who wants to run."
Jakub, now four, underwent more surgery in June last year to scold a bone so he could move.
But the bone where the heel should be is still causing further twisting of his left foot.
His feet have lost tissue as a result of the sepsis.
But Jakub's family are desperate for the boy to "lead a normal life".
Dr Dror Paley, a world-leading orthopedic surgeon, specialising in limb lengthening in Florida, contacted Pawel and Karina online.
He invited the family to London for a meeting where he told them about an operation, not available in the UK, to lengthen Jakub's feet and sculpt an insole.
The operation costs £63,093.18, and surgery has been pencilled in for April.
Pawel, who with Karina also has a nine-year-old daughter, is hopeful the surgery will allow his son to walk upright without pain for the first time in his life.
The dad said: "When we went to the appointment in London it was the first time in a long time that I saw a chance for our son."
The family has created a GoFundMe page .
