A/N: So this is a kinda boring chapter, but it's the diagnosis so it's all the technical stuff. The next chapter will be much more interesting, I promise! I may not have it up until later tonight though, because I haven't finished it yet and I have a lot of work to do, plus meetings and a musical to go to.
Holly Montgomery walked into Seattle Grace Hospital nervous about the news she was about to receive. Even with her left foot in a cast and on crutches, she was still extremely fashionable—truly a miniature version of Addison. Her long red hair was pulled half up in a barrette, with a few strands framing her face, and she had on a dark brown wrap sweater and designer jeans. She took a deep breath as she waited for the elevator.
"Oh, hi Mark," she said as she stepped onto the elevator and hit the button for the third floor, where she would meet with Callie and find out her fate.
"Holly," he nodded. "Addison told me about your surgery—I hope everything works out for the best."
"Thanks Mark," she said, feeling slightly awkward around him after what Addison had told her. Holly always liked Mark, even though he played a large role in the break up of her aunt and uncle, but Addison loved him and that's all she cared about. But after seeing her aunt fall apart in the hotel room a few weeks back as she told the story of her abortion and how Mark had treated her, she couldn't help but feel slightly angry with him.
Holly exited the elevator and walked up to the nurse's station. "Hi, I'm here for an appointment with Dr. Torres."
"Your name?"
"Holly Montgomery."
"Oh, Addison's niece...I'll let Dr. Torres know you're here. Have a seat." Nurse Debbie picked up the phone and dialed an extension to let Callie know her patient was here.
"Holly? Ready to get your cast off?" Callie came out of an exam room and over to the waiting area.
"Yeah, definitely," the red-head said as she stood up and hobbled over to the exam room. She got up onto the table and extended her left leg so Callie could start cutting off the cast. "So, have you heard back from the lab yet?"
"Yeah, I actually got the information this morning."
Holly took a deep breath and looked up at Callie waiting for an answer. "And…?"
"You do not have cancer." Callie smiled as Holly let out a huge sigh of relief.
"Oh thank God! Wait, so what is it then?"
"It's a severe bone infection called Osteomyelitis."
"How'd I get it?"
"We don't know. It could have been caused by anything—something you ate, something that got into your blood stream from a cut, literally anything. It probably settled in your foot because your bone was already weakened from the bone graft you had four years ago."
"Okay, so what do I have to do?"
"We're going to get you a high dosage of antibiotics, and hopefully that should begin to work. You'll need to get blood tests every month to make sure the antibiotics aren't hurting your blood count, and then a CT scan every three months to check for progress."
"How long do you think it'll take until it's completely better?"
"With the damage it has done to your heel, at least a year of medication, maybe more. When I went in there for the biopsy, it looked like 90 of your heel bone was completely dead, so it'll take awhile for that to revive itself. The pain should get better as the treatment progresses, but if it still hurts you can keep taking ibuprofen to take the edge off."
Addison knocked on the door and then walked into the room. "Callie, you paged me?"
"Yeah, I thought you'd want to know the diagnosis. I just heard back from pathology an hour ago…Osteomyelitis."
"Oh, thank God." Addison let out a sigh of relief and went over to sit next to her niece as Callie took out the remaining stitches.
"So how are things with Alex?" Callie asked Addison as she put on a new bandage over Holly's incision.
"Great, until we ran into the Chief in the hotel the other night after we saw your performance."
"Seriously? Damn. You guys were wasted by the time I talked to you, so I can only imagine."
"Yeah, well he wants me to stop by his office later to 'discuss an important matter', so we'll see how this goes."
"Haha, good luck. Alright Holly you're good to go. I'll want to see you in person in six months so I can check your progress, but until then just get the CT scans and blood tests results faxed over to me."
"Okay, thanks again Callie. Addison, do you have time for a quick lunch or do you have someplace to be?"
"Nope, I'm free until my meeting with the Chief, so let's go."