Two hip surgeries didn’t stop lifelong competitive swimmer Frances Poole Knight from going for gold.

As an active senior, Frances Poole Knight’s life was predicated by her ability to move. But after living with pain and discomfort in her left hip for more than a year, she was forced to turn to the support of a cane to maintain mobility.

A defining moment for Frances came one Christmas Eve at her church. As she processed down the aisle to sing with the choir, she began experiencing unbearable pain. Frances knew hip replacement surgery was her only option.

“I told my kids I had to leave,” Frances said. “I couldn’t do it.”

In 1998, Frances was referred to Kelsey-Seybold Clinic Chief of Orthopedics Dr. Glenn Landon, renowned in his field as a distinguished surgeon and one of the first in Houston to perform minimally invasive hip replacement surgery. Read Dr. Landon’s Top 5 Myths About Hip Replacements.

Shortly after her procedure with Dr. Landon, Frances was up, moving, and back to work in three weeks. A month later, her choral group performed Handel’s “Messiah” at Jones Hall.

“I stood up and sat down 14 times,” Frances said. “I was very proud that I was able to do that.”

It wasn’t long after her first surgery that she decided to have her right hip replaced. In 2005, Frances went back to Dr. Landon for a second procedure; this time on her right hip. Frances noted that the healing time was faster, due to improved surgical methods.

“I was dreading it, but it turned out to be not so traumatic,” Frances said. “Dr. Landon is an excellent mechanical engineer as well as a great doctor.”

Born to Swim
Since childhood, Frances has had an affinity for the water.

“I love the feel of the water around me and the sound of water lapping,” Frances said. “I’m just a pool person.”

The Galveston-native moved to Houston as a child and took lessons at the downtown YMCA. As a teen, Frances was a Junior Olympian and was a member of the Lamar High School swim team. She was also a member of the “Corkettes,” a synchronized swim team she’d swim a mile a day with in training.

But in college, swimming fell by the wayside. Frances later married, raised two children as a single parent, and witnessed the birth of her two grandchildren.


Back in the Water
Not long after her second surgery, Frances’ children graduated from college and started their own careers and families. At almost 70 years old, and after 41 years of service in Houston’s business community, she retired as grant administrator at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

Frances realized that she now had more time to pursue activities in retirement. She was ready to start swimming again.

Although some people dread going to the gym, Frances says swimming is a physical activity that she’s always eagerly anticipated.

“It’s the lowest possible impact on your joints,” says Frances. “If you’re true to your commitment to stay healthy, that’s what you need to keep doing. I swim to stay active to keep my body supple and in shape and to maintain strength and balance.”


A Senior Olympian
In 2007, Frances learned that local trials for the Senior Olympics were going to be held in Houston. She looked into it and decided that she would once again pursue competitive swimming.

In March of 2008, Frances entered the 50-yard breaststroke against women in the 70 to 74 age category. Her only limitation in the competition was that she doesn’t dive any more for fear that the impact will displace her artificial hips. Instead, she enters the pool early to get into her lane to push off, which adversely affects her score.

Despite this handicap, Frances won the silver medal for her category, qualifying her to go to the state meet in Temple, Texas where she won a gold medal and a spot in the national competition.

Prior to the August 2009 competition in Palo Alto, Calif., Frances was diagnosed with breast cancer, but she didn’t allow the news to keep her out of the competition.

“I went on and competed, and when I got home, I had to face the music,” Frances says.  She would later undergo a partial mastectomy, followed by radiation and drug therapy.

A total of 3,500 swimmers competed at the Senior Olympics.  In the three events, for her age, gender and group, Frances placed 25th, 20th and 17th. In one event, she beat her own time, which she considers a personal victory.

She went back to Dr. Landon, medals in hand. Proud of his patient’s achievements, Dr. Landon took out his phone to photograph Frances holding her medals in front of an X-ray of her two hip implants.

On Total Hip Replacement Surgery
Now an avid advocate for hip replacement surgery, Frances inspires others and emphasizes that having hip replacement surgery doesn’t mean that the patients who opt for the procedure are doomed to be in a wheelchair.  She considers her example an outreach to seniors, women and those with physical limitations.

“The surgery improved the quality of my life immeasurably,” said Frances, who in addition to swimming, still dances, walks up stair cases, travels and actively tours with her choral groups. “I could have never accomplished the things I’m doing now. I’ve gravitated toward what I’ve always loved.”

Do you have a heart warming story you’d like to share with us about your experience with Kelsey-Seybold? We’d love to hear it! Please call Valerie Clifton at 713-442-4910 or send an e-mail to valerie.clifton@kelsey-seybold.com.