Chapter 127: Bedside Manner

ALISON

"But he's going to be okay, right, Doc? We caught it in time?"

I squeezed the bony hands of the woman sitting next to me in the family waiting room on the med-surge floor at Tampa General.

"Yes, ma'am, Mrs. Rooney. Thanks to you insisting that your husband come in to see me, and the two of us getting him to the hospital fast enough, I don't expect there to be any complications. Appendectomies are fairly straightforward procedures these days. And since the appendix hasn't ruptured, that's a point in our favor."

"Oh, thank you so much, Dr. Wakely. I just don't know what we would have done without you." Tears trembled on her eyelashes. "No other doctor would've opened up the office on a Sunday just to see one patient."

"Well, if I'd realized what was going on, I might have just made a house call and saved you the trip. But it's probably good I didn't, since it was easier to get Mr. Rooney here from my office."

"That's true. I'm not sure we could've gotten him here in tim