“We genuinely need these toilets”: Disabled woman shares life after illness

Chalalyn is just 26, but an illness that began shortly after she started building her adult life has left her unable to walk, in chronic pain and with only limited movement in her hands.

Not long ago, she had graduated, found work and was beginning to enjoy the independence that came with earning her own income. Today, after six major operations and nearly three years away from work, she relies on a wheelchair and assistance with many daily tasks.

Still, in a series of candid Facebook posts, she has tried to offer encouragement to others who may feel overwhelmed by illness, disability or financial hardship.

“I thought that, as someone in her 20s who had only just started living her life, perhaps nobody could have failed or been quite as unlucky as me,”

Chalala said she graduated at 22, shortly before turning 23, and began a job paying 21,000 baht a month. With commission, she said, her monthly income sometimes reached 30,000 to 40,000 baht.

“Life was going well. For the first time, I could eat what I wanted, buy things, and travel,”

She later developed tuberculous meningitis, a serious form of tuberculosis affecting the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord. She said the illness also affected her spinal canal, compressing nerves and gradually leaving her unable to walk.

Over the past two years, she said, savings that had once represented her newfound independence were depleted by caring for her grandmother and paying medical expenses not covered by her treatment. She said she had also exhausted her available credit and now owed hundreds of thousands of baht.

The operations were intended to delay her becoming bedridden, she said, but her condition had continued to deteriorate. Both arms and hands are severely weakened, leaving her able to move only her thumbs. She also described persistent pain, including while sleeping, which she attributed to nerve compression in her neck.

In a more recent post, Chalala described another challenge: attending cosplay events as a wheelchair user.

A cosplayer for more than a decade, she said she had always dressed and applied make-up before leaving home, so she had not personally faced complaints about convention-goers changing in accessible toilets. That changed after she became disabled and began using a wheelchair.

She said that during two recent events, held at shopping centres and convention venues, she found accessible toilets occupied by cosplayers changing clothes. On one occasion, she said, she waited more than 10 minutes — long enough for most people queued for the regular toilets to go in and out — before a cosplayer emerged carrying clothing.

“I’m not trying to guard my privileges just because I have a disability card,” she wrote, adding that accessible toilets can be used by others when there is a genuine urgent need.

But for wheelchair users with spinal injuries or conditions, she said, the facilities are essential. Such conditions can also affect bowel and bladder control, while standard toilet cubicles often lack the space, rails and raised seating needed to transfer safely from a wheelchair.

In her case, she said, her male carer cannot assist her into a women’s regular toilet.

“We genuinely need to use these special toilets,” she wrote. “It is not because we want privileges over others or to skip the queue.”

She said she feared she could face the same problem again at Thailand Game Show later this month, but hoped attendees would simply use regular toilets to change clothes or apply make-up whenever possible.

Despite sharing her experience to encourage others, Chalala said she did not consider herself unusually strong.

“I’m just living from day to day because I’m still here,” she wrote. “But I wanted to offer encouragement to anyone who needs it.”

Khaosod English reached out to Chalalyn for permission to post her story and socials. Those who wish to support Chalalyn directly can do so through the QR code provided below.