Karl’s New Tooth

It was a long and restless night. Karl and I woke up not being very sure about how the day would go. SPOILER ALERT: Everything turned out fine and Karl looks just amazing.

So, if you are not super interested in the AMAZINGLY cool process of modern dentistry that we witnessed today, go to the next post with pictures of all of the cute kids.

So since it happened at a work party, we needed to go to an approved workman’s comp place to get a referral to a dentist. Karl worked in the morning while he waited to hear from the Law Department. I rented an apartment and signed a lease while I waited to hear from Karl.

Around 11 I finally heard from Karl about it. He had his referral, and I was in action.
I get him an appointment with Dr. Joe Jepson, a really GREAT dentist that Betsy referred us to. Seriously, if you are in Utah Valley, he is a great dentist!

They got us right in, and Karl was able to verbalize his serious anxiety about being at the dentist. Like serious. Beyond what I believe most people experience. I think that the build up to going was the worst part of all. The doctor at the workman’s comp said he thought it was going to take an implant. When I heard that my heart SUNK. BUT, Dr. Jepson was really cool about getting his some nitrous gas, and he dental plan was to patch the tooth, then shape it, then put an a crown.

Dr. Jeppson, getting Karl all numb. This I think was one of the worst parts for Karl. The nitrous only worked to a point. It was supposed to make him less anxious, but he was still pretty unhappy as he was feeling the “pressure” from the needle.

Karl started to get a little silly. He said, “I know that he was poking me with a needle when he said there was pressure. It was a huge needle, and he held his hands about two feet apart, “Like this big.” And then pantomimed using that huge needle on his face like a jackhammer, with sound effects.

I tired to video tape some of these shenanigans, and there were a few zingers in there.

My favorite line was:

“This is going to be the worst nitrous video ever, you are only going to get like, two looks on ViewTube.”

He was mostly concerned that he was not actually being affected by the gas. His brain was just too powerful, what do you think?

Once he was nice and numb, Dr. Jepson ground down his tooth into a nub.

Then the dentist took pictures of Karl’s teeth with this magic little flashing wand, then designed a tooth with the 3D image to fit perfectly on the nub.