HOUSTON -- Balbir Kaur was so desperate to get out of her wheelchair, she tried buying a prosthetic leg on eBay for $35.

Kaur has been in the wheelchair since 2000 when she lost a leg because of complications from diabetes.

It's been a nightmare for the woman who has no health insurance and lives in a two-story house.

“When I go to my room I crawl up the steps. When I’m using the washer upstairs, I’m doing it on my knees,” said Kaur.

The scars on her knees say it all.

When the prosthetic leg from eBay didn't fit, Kaur donated to a Houston organization called Limbs of Love.

That's when her life changed.

Limbs of Love, in turn, gave Kaur a $15,000 prosthetic leg.

“It’s the difference between her crawling on her hands and knees around her house,” said Joe Sansone, who founded Limbs of Love.

The prosthetic allowed Kaur to take her first steps in two years.

Kaur isn’t alone in her desperation.

Right now, there are as many as 5,000 amputees in Texas who have health insurance. 

But insurance doesn’t cover artificial limbs.

“The reason why insurance companies don’t cover prosthetic devices is because it saves an employer 12 to 35 cents on their monthly insurance premium, per employee,” said Sansone.

That adds up to a savings of about $20 for a company with 100 employees.