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ST. LOUIS — Kiley Davis is walking again, going to school and helping take care of her baby sister.

The Illinois middle schooler is recovering from a severe bout of COVID-19 that kept her in the hospital for most of the spring.

“She’s done amazing,� said Dr. William Orr, a Washington University pediatric cardiologist at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, who treated Kiley. “I think she is on the right track to have a full recovery.�

Across Missouri, more than 100,000 children have gotten COVID-19. Infections are now falling across the region and the state, in both adults and kids. As of Monday, eight children were in regional hospitals fighting the virus, less than one-third the number from two months ago. But hospitals and families are left with some kids still working to recover.

Kiley, 12, of Greenfield, Illinois — about 60 miles north of St. Louis — got sick in February, during a winter wave that infected children in numbers previously unseen.

Kiley suddenly became lethargic and had trouble staying awake. She had been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes the previous summer, and her sugar levels were going up and down. Her mother, Melanie Davis-Baker, suspected diabetic ketoacidosis, a condition in which the body doesn’t have enough insulin to let blood sugar into the cells to use as energy.

Kiley was admitted to the hospital on Feb. 7, and she was diagnosed with inflammation of the heart muscle, known as myocarditis, and pneumonia.

Doctors suspected something had triggered the sudden diabetic episode. In some cases, a virus is to blame, said Dr. Kristin Guilliams, a Washington University pediatric neurologist and intensivist at St. Louis Children’s Hospital who treated Kiley.

But Kiley’s first COVID-19 test came back negative. At the same time, her condition was worsening: She was put on a ventilator and an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO, machine, which is used to oxygenate a patient’s blood when the lungs are too damaged to do so. Doctors tested Kiley for genetic abnormalities that could have caused her health problems, but didn’t find anything conclusive.

Then, on Feb. 19, doctors ran another COVID-19 test, and Kiley was positive for the virus. Doctors now suspect the first test was negative because she was in the early stages of infection.

Kiley was taken off the ECMO machine after 10 days, but was still too sick to breathe on her own, and remained on a ventilator until mid-March. She suffered a stroke — a mysterious but not uncommon complication associated with ECMO treatment, Guilliams said — and lung problems. She had to undergo surgery, and part of her right lung was removed.

Kiley’s muscles were weak after her extended hospital stay. Doctors ordered respiratory therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy and physical therapy. It took time to learn to sit up on her own, stand up without getting dizzy and walk again. She practiced stepping from one surface to another, like from concrete to grass, without losing balance.

Kiley’s mother was six months pregnant when Kiley was first admitted to the hospital. In the spring, during the last week or two of her hospital stay, her mother was having contractions, and couldn’t make the drive to visit her in the hospital.

“It was rough,� Davis-Baker said.

Finally, on May 6, Kiley was discharged from St. Louis Children’s Hospital. She returned home to Greenfield, and was reunited with her younger brother and the family’s three dogs. Her sister was born four days later.

For a while Kiley continued physical, occupational and aquatic therapy at a local wellness center. In the fall she started seventh grade, and despite having missed the last three months of sixth grade, she is doing well in her classes, her mom said.

“Even when things look like they’re at their worst, it can turn around in an instant,� said Davis-Baker.

Kiley refers to COVID-19 as “my worst enemy — arch nemesis, as you might say.�

But she’s finally sleeping through the nights, again, away from the noisy hospital. Her brother is teasing her.

And finally, on Tuesday, her cardiologist said she could restart some of her favorite activities, like riding her hoverboard and her dirt bike.