More dental buffoonery

Oscar Wisting at the South Pole and at Base Camp

Current conditions:  Con 3, Temp -17ºF (wind chill out of range), partly cloudy.  Population: 277

In 1911, on their final push towards the South Pole (see video here), one of the five members of the Amundsen team, the Norwegian, Oscar Wisting, developed a toothache.  Ironically, he was the team member with dental training, and since, he wrote later, "it was a little far to the nearest dentist, I asked [Amundsen] if he would take care of the beast. He instantly declared himself willing, and our forceps were got out. On account of the cold, it first had to be warmed over the Primus. Then I knelt in my sleeping bag, and he sat over me in his, and pulled as hard as he could. After a tremendous fuss the operation -- eventually -- succeeded, and with that all my troubles were over."

We, too, are a little far from the nearest dentist but are not so fortunate with our dental results.  After the "successful" bonding of my veneer, we went on a tour of Discovery Hut, this time to see the inside.  The temperature, with wind chill, was somewhere around -40ºF and it was blowing.  We found some shelter from the gusts on the hut veranda as we waited for our turn to enter (if you want to know why there is a veranda, see here).  

Frozen seal, killed for food 117 years ago, on the veranda of Discovery Hut

As usual, I spent considerable effort trying to take pictures.  It's a challenge.  If the phone gets cold, it dies, so  I have to keep it the inside pocket of my "Big Red", wedged between hand warmers.  On this hike, I decided to wear liner gloves under my RefrigiWear Gloves, hoping I wouldn't have to expose my hands completely while taking pictures.  No such luck: my iPhone demanded skin.  When I wanted to take a picture (which was often), I had to take off the outer glove, unzip my coat, grab the phone, take off the liner glove, turn on the phone while trying, often unsuccessfully, not to drop gloves, take a picture or two, and then reverse the process.  In the minute or so required for these steps, my photography hand would become painfully cold, even with hand warmers grasped in my palm.  

Dean, all parts covered.  It was cold!

Not surprisingly, after repeating the picture-taking process over and over, the gloves became harder and harder to pull on.  My hands were too cold and inflexible for the job.  So what did I do?  I did what everyone does--I used my teeth to pull the leather glove over my wrists.  And with that little tug, I felt my veneer peel off into the gusty winds.  I quickly looked down to search for it on the ground and saw the snow around my feet blowing in swirls off to the south.  Picking out a fingernail-sized, white piece of porcelain in a continental expanse of snow is a fruitless enterprise.  Nevertheless, four of us briefly knelt down, all the while knowing it was a Sisyphean task.  Then, Dean and I trudged back to the base.

Once again, I interrupted Bob Koff, the dentist, on his trip to Georgia.  And once again, he was saint-like in his rapid response saying, "There's a seal out there with a nice-looking tooth".   He guided us through making a composite out of resin.  Dean shaped the tooth under my incessant kibbitzing, with each change I asked for making it a bit uglier.  Ultimately, as Dean said, we decided not to make perfect the enemy of good and called it quits.   Now, the tooth looks like I had a bad orthodontist when I was a kid, which is pretty much where I started 15 years ago.  Bob will make it nicer when he gets here in January.  Dentistry is a field for artists.  See yesterday's post about my aptitude in that regard.

I wish I could say that this is where the buffoonery ends.  But no!  As all this is going on, a patient comes in (yes, we do actually have to take care of people) with REAL dental issues.  He lost a crown on the left and then crunched down hard with the loose crown wedged between his right molars.  He wasn't worried about the missing crown but said that the right side was painful.  Bob told us to examine the painful tooth and then to X-ray both sides--both where the crown was lost and where the tooth hurt.

Dean did the exam handily.  Then, it took Dean, me, occasionally Shawn, and Chris (who was in his office hiding because he clearly hates anything dental), AND the patient a full two hours to figure out how to take the damn images, save them and send them on to Bob in Georgia. There were stumbles every step of the way.  First, there was no power cord for the computer.  Then, we had to configure the arcane geometry of the bite-blocks and aiming rings.  It would have helped had WE NOTICED THE CHART RIGHT IN FRONT OF US, explaining which holder and configuration were needed for which tooth.  Then, we couldn't figure out what the sensor bar was.  We were so relieved when we had this sorted out, that we forgot to put the x-ray machine up to the patient's mouth; it was aiming out the window.  The patient himself pointed out that small detail.  Finally, figuring out how to use the software to save the image to the patient's file and to send the images in an email was a nightmare.

In the end, though, the images came out well.  Bob was pleased. Nothing was broken, either in the patient's mouth or in the dental suite itself.  We gave the patient sensodyne and off he went.  Props to all those dental hygienists (that means you, MB) who seem to do this effortlessly.   My learning curve is steep.

Not a HIPAA violation?