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Debbie Pullen has been confined to a wheelchair since April 9, after having the flu. Ms. Pullen was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, but does not have insurance to cover the physical therapy she needs to regain strength and muscle in her legs and hands.

Usually, finding yourself all of a sudden unable to walk is something that happens only in nightmares.

Maybe that’s why Debbie Pullen feels like she’s in one.

The 48-year-old Gallatin, Mo., woman has been in a wheelchair for six months now, ever since the April day her legs stopped working. She’d had the flu, and her doctor assured her the weakness she was experiencing was from that.

Then she fell twice in the parking lot leaving the office, and after driving home, the only way she could get inside was by crawling. At Liberty Hospital, she learned that her condition was in fact due to the flu — but it was also much more serious.

Ms. Pullen has Guillain-Barré syndrome, which the National Institutes of Health describes as a disorder in which the body’s immune system attacks part of the peripheral nervous system, which can cause paralysis. The rare disease usually occurs a few days or weeks after a person has had symptoms of a respiratory or gastrointestinal viral infection, and most of those affected are able to recover — but not always without help.

And help — specifically, physical therapy — is what Ms. Pullen needs. But being homebound, she doesn’t have the income or insurance coverage to pay for it herself. She’s too young to qualify for Medicare, and Medicaid — although it would cover the cost of a nursing home, should she choose to go that route — won’t pay for physical therapy until she’s a few years older.

“I just don’t understand,” she said. “Why would they want to spend thousands of dollars for me to go to a nursing home instead of paying for a little physical therapy? Just half an hour, two or three times a week, would be better than nothing.”

Hers is a story that hints at the need for health care reform that’s on the minds of many, especially during an election year. It’s also one that puts a face on the statistic of all the Americans who don’t have adequate health care coverage. But for Ms. Pullen, her story most of all is one she hopes won’t end with her in a wheelchair forever.

“She cries every evening when I talk to her, because she just doesn’t know what to do,” Ms. Pullen’s sister, Brenda Sullivan, said. “I would gladly pay a physical therapist to come work with her, but I can’t afford to pay $300 an hour.”

Most prices they’ve been quoted are between $150 and $350, she added. This expense is a barrier that’s especially frustrating in that those few hours of therapy per week likely would be what would keep Ms. Pullen from never walking again — if she were to get the help soon, anyway.

“Doctors say I need the therapy now, if I’m ever going to walk again, and they can’t believe people are turning me down,” she said. “I would do anything I could to get help. I pray every night I could just wake up in the morning and be like I was before.”

Erin Wisdom can be reached

at ewisdom@npgco.com.