Meet Sandra, me+ Community member

It’s hard not to be inspired by Sandra Khumalo.

But you’d expect that from a Paralympian rower, mother of two, and full-time patient support and training assistant at Convatec in Johannesburg, South Africa. As well as training nurses and doctors on how to use GentleCath™ with FeelClean Technology™, her role is also to “help inspire and motivate newly disabled people in rehab centers”, she says.

The calm reassurance Sandra shares with people comes from her own experience. At 22, she was in a car accident that left her paralyzed from the waist down. “It was very scary at first”, she says of learning how to use an intermittent catheter. “Back then, I couldn’t see myself where I am today. I felt it was the end.”

In some ways, however, it was just the beginning. Sandra was introduced to rowing and did not look back. “I found my legs again in the rowing boat.” She excelled as a champion rower and qualified for the South African Paralympic rowing team for the London 2012 Paralympic Games and then for Rio 2016, where a familiar problem re-occurred.

She’d been using reusable catheters and had been struggling with regular urinary tract infections (UTIs), one of which she got two days before she was due to race. “My body got very weak and, I couldn’t perform how I wanted to”, she says. “I managed to raise myself enough to finish 10th.”

It was a bitter result for Sandra, who had ambitions to rank in the top 5. True to form, though, she wasn’t deterred and finished 5th in the World Championships in Sarasota, Florida, the following year. Around the same time, Sandra was introduced to something else she says made a big change in her life. After experimenting with other hydrophilic catheters, she found GentleCath™ with FeelClean Technology™. “It was like, wow, I had less pain, and my problems with regular UTIs were gone.”

She also found another passion – her work supporting people at the beginning of their own self-catheterization journey. “I am so passionate now about touching and changing people’s lives. I want to help them experience the same change that I did in my life. A good day for me is to walk out of a hospital or rehab center and leave people with hope and focus on what they can still do, regardless of the change they’re going through with their bodies."

I'm Sandra and I'm in love with my life.

“I’m a very busy person and a very social person.” On a normal day, Sandra rows for 2–3 hours before going to work, then she says, “I go home to be a mommy. It’s very important that I can fully focus on what I need to do.” For Sandra, that means not worrying about when and if she needs to self-catheterize. When she started cathing, she says she often have to guess when to do it. 

“The longer I delayed, the more I might have a leak. I was getting embarrassed and tired of being self-pitying.” Sandra has since started using GentleCath™ with FeelClean Technology™ and, she says, has implemented a regular routine that gives her the confidence to get on with life.  She catheterizes 3–4 times in the day – before she gets in the boat, before she goes to work or a long meeting or social event, and before she goes home, in case she gets caught in traffic and twice at night.

"It has really taken away the stress and has changed a lot for me." It's tips such as these that Sandra shares in her work supporting people who are new to cathing.

“I tell above anything else, to be kind to themselves. With preparation and planning, you can get back to the life you want to live. Catheterizing is not easy at first, but I advise people to keep going, and it gets easier. By taking control of your situation, you’re helping yourself to avoid other complications.”

Such complications, she says, can range from urinary tract infections (UTIs) to potentially embarrassing social situations. “At the end of the day, when you prepare well, nobody needs to know you’re using a catheter. It’s only you who knows unless you chose to tell somebody.” Sandra, however, encourages people to speak up and talk to people close to them about self-catheterization when the moment feels right. “It depends on the environment and the person, but I think it’s important for people to know about it. There's nothing wrong with catheterizing – it is just a different way of passing urine!” Telling people close to her also helped her feel calmer and more confident.

“For me, I feel it’s good to talk about it. I think the more you talk about it, the more you open up, the more you heal.”