Dianne,
I am glad you are looking into getting a wheelchair. I think you will find it greatly improves your ability to get around while conserving energy and reducing risks of falls.
You don't need to be "bad" to qualify for a wheelchair when you have an ALS diagnosis. You should not wait until you can no longer walk to get a wheelchair. Getting a wheelchair early in the disease process allows you to make decisions about how you expend your limited capacity for walking. You will reduce your risk of falling and will go places you would otherwise miss once you have a wheelchair.
In my experience, it takes longer than expected to actually get a wheelchair once the process starts. My first wheelchair took 4 months from the first visit to NuMotion until the wheelchair was delivered. I had the prescription for a month before that and my neurologist had started recommending a wheelchair a year before that. My message is, don't wait like I did. Start NOW.
As others have said, you should be able to get a wheelchair working with folks locally in Amarillo.
Any doctor can write a prescription for a wheelchair. My last wheelchair prescription was written by my local PCP. That saved me the two hour (each way) trip that would have been required to meet in person with my neurologist.
There are many places in or near Amarillo from which you can procure the wheelchair. For example, there is a NuMotion (one of the largest wheelchair providers in country) office in Lubbock and Mobility Solutions is in Amarillo. Most of the major firms will accept Medicare.
I recommend you consider getting your wheelchair locally. They are complex machines and can break. When they do, you will need to get it serviced. I needed quite a few adjustments in fit during the first few months of ownership as well. Most organizations will send a mobile technician to your location for repairs, but sometimes I find that it is either better or even necessary to take my wheelchair into their shop.
In fact, we just made the trip to Denver yesterday to drop off my Permobil F5 wheelchair for some extensive work.
As an aside, my father was born in Hale Center (between Amarillo and Lubbock). My grandmother was raised in Levelland (west of Lubbock). We drive through Amarillo every year (except this year) on our way to San Antonio to visit family for Thanksgiving. Somehow, the high plains always feels a bit like home to me, though my wife cringes everytime I say that
.
Steve