Everett Ramos is a resident surgeon at Mercy West Hospital in Seattle, Washington. She's on the uphill climb to becoming one of the best orthopedic surgeons in the world, studying alongside her best friends and hoping one day to make a difference...
running your fingers through the hair of someone you love
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KERRY PARK has the most amazing views.
Even though they're wrapped up in thick coats to keep the freeze out, neither of them can complain about the wind whipping through the trees when the green leaves blow past their faces. Everett loves this time of the year, after her birthday but before the Spring decides to come along, when it's still cold enough to wear her red houndstooth coat that would have been too cold for Minnesota. The leaves may have turned green overnight, but there's still a crunch beneath her step caused by leftover ice from the harsh winter that blew snow in their faces and forced the four surgeons sharing a shitty apartment to huddle in front of their electric heater in an attempt to stave off the chill. It's a good thing April put hot water bottles in the ends of all their beds every night.
"Your fifty-seven-year-old, female flat-feet patient has Morton's neuroma. Go."
Callie just knows how to ruin a good mood. They've been up since six this morning, just like every morning for the past few weeks, walking Sofia in her stroller so she can get a breath of fresh air while Callie uses her best tricks to teach her resident how to pass her upcoming board exams.
"Okay. Morton's can be caused by excessive wearing of high-heeled shoes. If she's a woman in an office job, or working under a man she's most likely forced to wear high heels every day–"
"She doesn't wear high heels, ever."
Everett swears quietly. Luckily, Sofia doesn't hear. She's too busy laughing at the sight of a bushy-tailed squirrel running ahead of them with a too-big acorn stuck between his weird humanoid hands.
"Fine. She might not have Morton's, it could just be pain from the flat feet. So, we need to do a press test, then probably x-rays to rule out stress fractures, then we do an ultrasound to look at the internal structures and reveal any soft tissue abnormalities, like a neuroma."
"Okay. She definitely has Morton's. What now?"
Everett kicks leaves out from underneath her scuffed black boots. She's never encountered anybody with Morton's neuroma, but Callie's forced her to study every night at her apartment since the start of February that she'd be stupid not to know her flashcards off by heart by now.
"She also has flat feet, so she's definitely tried the whole conservative 'wear different shoes', so we have to take a more 'radical' approach. Okay, we should probably not do decompression surgery since cutting the ligaments of her foot won't help that at all. We could remove the nerve altogether, but that's only if the injection of steroids into the painful area doesn't work. Except, she's got flat feet, which can have an effect on diabetes. So, if she has diabetes then we bypass the steroids completely as that raises blood sugar levels, and go straight to removing the nerve. Unless, of course, she'd rather go to an old white man who tells her to 'take a break' or 'wear different shoes'."
