No, not the video game, which would have been infinitely more pleasant, this despite the fact that I have all the skill in a first-person shooter of a spastic, brain-damaged Valium-sedated fox kit who'se been given a healthy dose of LSD for the first time.

No, I mean DOOM, as in the end of things, and the pain, agony, horror, and general unpleasantness that comes thereafter.

This started, as many things painful do, with a trip to the dentist for a toothache. Sadly, my health insurance has lapsed. Thus, no coverage. THAT situation you can blame on the United States Postal Service apparently hiring a letter carrier who cannot read nor write the English language beyond the barest minimum needed to understand numbers, coupled with my equally illiterate-in-English (this despite living here for 30 years) upstairs neighbors / landlords. Due to this, they delayed me getting notice for re-certification for a slight bit more than a month.

Insurance companies do NOT like sick people, and chronic asthma counts as sick. It cuts into profits, and generally gives their accountants a bad day. This, plus lateness, is NOT a good thing. Thus, I have been unceremoniously informed that I shall have health insurance when they good and well feel like it, paperwork being in order be damned.

This, thusly, placed me in the hospital Emergency Room dental unit on Thursday morning with not a single shred of coverage. To the hospital, this means that there is one allowable sure-fire cure-all for a toothache, and apparently the ONLY one they are permitted to perform. That's right, no matter how salvageable the tooth is, the answer is "Rip it out!". Thursday, though, isn't a day for oral surgery, and thus I had a respite until the next day, Friday, November 6th. What I was told was that I should go home, dose up on painkillers until loopy, and return on the morrow. Which I promptly did.

The second visit was, of course, more anxiety-laden then the first, because this time I had walked in with the sure knowledge firmly held within my mind that I was about to subject myself to great pain. I couldn't have imagined at that moment how absolutely right I was on that estimation.

After a somewhat cursory numbing of the right side of my lower jaw, an attempt which took an amazing three full needles full of Novacaine, I was subjected to a half-hour or so of twisting, yanking, wiggling, pulling, digging, and the like. Somewhere in there, I discovered to my great displeasure, that the nerve was NOT fully anaesthetized. This resulted in the use of yet another needle of Novacaine, this time directly into the nerve shaft. To say this hurt would be akin to comparing the surface of the sun to a nice warm lay-down-in-it sunbeam. I've been in agony before, but few times has it had me scream so loud that the Pediatric division down the hall had to close its' door and send in a representative to see if one of their children had wandered in to be mauled. No, it was merely me, the almost forty year old Kitsune, screaming at the top of her prodigious and quite-functional lungs (this despite chronic asthma).

After this agonizing half-hour, the tooth finally came free with a sucking pop that would have made George Romero reach for the blue barf bags. This was promptly followed by the dentist wiping sweat from her brow and exclaiming to me "Miss Kyubi, you gave me QUITE the workout!", followed by her holding up this bloodied abused molar triumphantly. I swear at this moment that it was one of those scenes where you half-expect lightning to come down and strike the tooth to transform this woman into some form of super-dentist, yelling out "I have the TOOTH!" to all and sundry.

Sadly, the reality and method of New York's lovely health care system kicked in a few seconds later. You see, here in New York, it is customary for dentists (they SAY required by law, though I sincerely doubt this) to dispose of the tooth as a biohazard, allowing the patient or others naught but a cursory look (must not touch it, no, not allowed!) before it is removed into a light-tight one-way box that were it in science fiction would then emit a bright light and a puff of smoke. Personally, I call it destruction of evidence should there be a case of wrong-doing. I'm also reasonably sure that this treatment is NOT afforded to those with adequate insurance. From there, it's on to a mouthful of gauze you're told to bite on for the next half hour to stop the bleeding.

That's right, no stitches, no after-the-fact painkiller, nothing. Just yank, pop, drop, and you get the unceremonious boot out the door, to make room for someone better-suited to pay for their next Porsche or Ferrari.

Thusly, I went home with my face still half-numb from Novacaine, under orders to find the most powerful painkiller I can and take it BEFORE the anaesthetic wears off, chomping down on a bloody piece of gauze, with a nearly two centimeter deep hole in my gum.

The pain hit me about an hour or two later, leaving me feeling like I had gone three rounds with Mike Tyson, all of which was aimed at using my muzzle as a target to practice his left hook, followed by a similar bout with a freshly-resurrected Muhammad Ali. Drugging down didn't remove the pain, nor even numb it seriously. Instead, it succeeded in taking the edge off, turning it from unbearably excruciating to merely excruciating.

Thus followed on two days where my body went through what amounts to a slow, crawling state of shock, replete with chills, sweats, listlessness, inability to focus (then again, that sometimes seems to be my usual state, so I'm not so sure there), and, of course, liberal and free doses of pain washing over me like the tides and waves on the beaches of Hawaii. Sadly, it was not anywhere near as pleasant as said aforementioned location. Instead, it closely resembled a unique and small slice of the Christian Hell, specifically crafted for my amusement.

The rest shall follow...