About six weeks ago when I first started the garden, I was using Patti's old rusted pitchfork and bent one of the tines. In an effort to bend it back, my hand slipped and I stuck the bent tine into my left shin. Probably went in about two inches. We cleaned it up aggressively, but there was no way to clean it out completely. I knew at the time that I needed a tetanus shot. No way I could avoid that. But since my divorce, I haven't had health insurance. (Quick sidebar: originally, when quoted last year on the cost of COBRA, a figure of $500 a month was given. Thanks to Obamacare's regulations and price increases, that figure became $1,000 a month in February. Plus, it came with a $3,000 deductible. Too much money.) Patti told me that Walgreens, here in Texas, allows you to visit their walk-in clinics and that it's much cheaper. The pharmacist herself gave me my booster shot and it was a grand total of $63. That's affordable. But since that time, it's been a struggle to figure out the best way to allow the inevitable infections to seep out. Blood poisoning was always a possibility. Kind of a mess. This is me today, almost healed.  About two weeks into it, a second swelling started to emerge, about where the tip of the tine was. The infection broke the skin and since that time, I've had two open sores. Both have steadily weeped out the guk, and Patti was intuitive about how to treat it, keeping both sores soft and open, covered with Neosporin and band-aids. If I didn't allow them to be soft and open, they would get real angry looking and swollen. So soft and open it is. Been a weird journey, but I'm reminded that I'm older and not as quick to heal as I once was. | 
