Methodist doctor surprises longtime patient with personalized Royals jersey

When you’ve cared for a patient for over 25 years, you get to know them pretty well – their family, their hobbies and, in Patti Gibb’s case, her favorite baseball team.

Thomas Franco, MD, a physical medicine and rehabilitation provider at Methodist Physicians Clinic - HealthWest, surprised his longtime patient on Aug. 12 with a personalized Kansas City Royals jersey. The No. 10 on the jersey is a nod to her upcoming birthday on Oct. 10.

Gibb was in her 20s when she experienced a hemorrhagic stroke, and she’s struggled with left-sided paralysis and spasticity in her left arm since. When she first visited Dr. Franco in 1997, he recalls, she told him: “Doctor, my left arm hurts so much that if you can’t help me, can you arrange to have it amputated?”

“That’s something that stays with you,” he said.

Dr. Franco could help, though, as one of the area’s first providers to use Botox injections to relieve muscle spasticity, stiffness and pain. Today, he’s been providing the treatment longer than anyone in the region.

Every 12 weeks, Gibb visits Dr. Franco for Botox injections in her left arm, with relief coming “pretty much immediately,” she said.

“It really made a positive difference in her life,” Dr. Franco said. “It dramatically reduced the pain in her arm.”

And her surprise gift from Dr. Franco during today’s appointment? 

“I was just dumbfounded,” she said.