Tetanus shot? Nah

I was working on one of Nathan’s watches last week and managed to sink a jeweler’s screwdriver into my left thumb deep enough for it to stay there by itself.

I mean, only just. But still. I didn’t have to hold my thumb any certain way. There it was, like a little miniature shiv.

So I pulled it out, squeezed the sides of the wound to encourage bleeding, and poured hydrogen peroxide all over it. Then I bandaged it.

Doesn’t seem infected, four days later. I think it’ll be all the way well in another two.

But…should I go get a tetanus shot?

I’m pretty sure I’ve never had any sort of booster vaccine shot except when I worked at Madison Books and Computers in college and Lisa who worked in the warehouse got mumps, and Joe made us all go get a mumps shot. So I’m certain I’m not current on tetanus.

But the screwdriver was in less than half an inch, and it’s lived its whole life in my study and not on the ground in the dirt, and I felt a little sting when I poured the peroxide. So probably it’s OK, right?

OK, you want to know how I really sold myself on doing nothing? I looked up tetanus case numbers. There are only about 30 cases every year in the United States.

Now that link says people who get it tend to be adults who don’t keep their boosters up. So, that would be me. But, I mean, seriously. I’m confident this injury closely resembles countless thousands of injuries that occur on construction sites every day. And if 30 people in the whole damned country get the disease in a year, then I’m going to play the odds.

So if you hear of me getting, or even dying of, tetanus, get yourself ready to talk to the press of my potential untimely demise.

“Yeah, you know, he was one of the smartest people I knew, except, I guess, for this…”

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