As if Arizona hasn't already had a rough year, Thursday's episode of Grey's Anatomy will see her stricken with an ailment that could be incurable: phantom limb syndrome.

How will Arizona handle the latest hurdle since her amputation? TVGuide.com caught up with Jessica Capshaw, who also discusses how the plane crash survivors may be able to save Seattle Grace and Callie (Sara Ramirez) and Arizona's future. Get the scoop:

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How will Arizona be dealing with phantom limb syndrome? Jessica Capshaw: It's completely terrifying. When we finished the table read, everyone was like, "Whoa!" It's really creepy. It's really tonally different than a lot of the show. It kind of hits on a dream sequence that's lovely, but then it takes a sharp turn into this nightmare. I think it's incredibly compelling. You can't stop watching, especially because we have the craziest, most amazing special effects team in the universe that literally spend a month on each episode, fine-tuning and making sure it looks the way it does. It's mind-bending. It's a little bit outside the box for us.

How will it affect her work? Capshaw: It's going to threaten her ability to work. The syndrome is actually that you feel pain, at times excruciating, in the limb that you actually no longer have. Seemingly, to that end, there would be no cure because you can't get rid of something that isn't there. It's about the connection between your mind and your body, and there are different therapies that you can go through to try and come to terms with it. She's going to have to go through those, and yet, because of her not wanting to deal with it, and her feeling like she can keep working, she's bringing it to work with her and it's hard to be operating on someone when you're feeling excruciating pain in your leg like someone's cutting it off.

Will Callie be there to help her through this? Capshaw: She's in denial with Callie. They're in a sweet spot right now, so I don't think she really wants to go back into the dark place and bring Callie back into the dark place with her. As Callie said a couple episodes back, "It's always about the leg. It needs to stop being about the leg." So she doesn't want to bring it up with her. She's ready to move past it. Her mind is ready to move past it, but now it's her body and her mind that are making it impossible. She ends up going to Owen (Kevin McKidd), because he recognizes in her what he recognizes in a lot of his military buddies and amputees, so he ends up helping her to find therapies that might make it easier.

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How will the plane crash survivors feel about the possibility of Seattle Grace going bankrupt? Capshaw: That's such a mixed bag of tricks. On some level, wouldn't you feel betrayed by someone choosing a cheaper alternative of getting you somewhere that in some cases made you lose your leg? At the same time, punishing that source would punish the place you love so much and you work at that's part of your lifeline. It's incredibly complicated. You're damned either way. You can't get behind either thing. I don't think they're going to feel any different about the emotional value about their workplace being compromised, but they have a particular situation in which they may or may not have power to help or not help and fix everything.

Fans have assumed that they will help and give their money to the hospital. But will there be a divide within the group on whether they should do that? Capshaw: That might be the case, she says coyly. [Laughs] Certainly there's a lot of people involved, so I can't imagine they think the same thing.

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Grey's Anatomy's Jessica Capshaw: What Will Threaten Arizona's Ability to Work?