Last night I got home late and was getting ready for bed when I took a step back without looking and landed full force on poor Luna’s tail. Her response was to sink her very impressive teeth into my calf – TWICE – before tearing off to hide under the sofa. Well, there was blood everywhere and I had to get into the bathtub to rinse off my leg, and then staunched the bleeding with a betadine-soaked cloth. After the worst was over I spent the next 20 minutes trying to coax Luna out from under the sofa. She finally came out, visibly shaken, and let me pick her up, rub her belly, kiss her head, all that jazz. When I saw she had calmed down I went back to my wounds. The two massive vampire bites on my calf had started to throb and I was reminded of the last time this happened (it was pre-blog or I’d link back) about 15 years ago.

My friend Jim had left his pretty siamese girl Echo with me for a week in the hope that my handsome burman Sunny would get her pregnant. Well, that bit didn’t work out, poor Sunny didn’t seem to know what to do, even when (castrated) Azar demonstrated by mounting Echo several times. Meanwhile, Sunny’s mother Lua was not pleased with having company and one day Echo strayed too close and got a serious whupping. Because I’m stupid I got between them in an attempt to break things up at which point Echo clamped her teeth onto my ankle and Lua walked off in regal disdain.

Then I saw the blood, and so with Echo still attached, I made my way to the bathroom. Finally Echo released her jaws of death grip and ran off, leaving me to bleed all over the bathtub for a good while. That ankle still bears the Mark of Echo to this day. At the time I didn’t think much about it, other than the next day when it hurt so bad I could barely walk, and a friend said I should really get a tetanus shot. Let’s just say it was quite an adventure trying to get a tetanus shot on a Sunday in Sevilla in the summer.

Fast forward to waking up with super painful vampire bites and wondering if I had to get another tetanus shot just in case. Quick call to my doctor confirmed that it was probably a good idea, so off I went to my local medical centre. But when I got in to see the nurse she told me it probably wasn’t necessary (it’s not like in the old days! she said) but since I couldn’t remember my childhood vaccinations, or even when the last booster shot was (other than about 15 years ago) she gave me the injection. I really liked this nurse – she was the sort of no-nonsense and clearly knowledgeable person I like to have in charge of my health. Very likely I won’t need another tetanus shot before I die, which is a good thing because my arm hurts almost as much as my vampire-bitten calf.

When was the last time you had a tetanus shot?