There are of course aspects of rose work that have to be done without gloves, but I've become careless, assuming that removal of a prickle and oral antibiotics would fix the ones that got red and swollen. Wrong. If the trouble gets into the sheath of a finger tendon, it can use the sheath as a channel to the palm, and if neglected can destroy the tendon. I ended up in the local hospital for one night, and two nights in a big hospital in the hands of plastic surgeons. They say I'll get "most of" the function back, having caught it in time.
Wiki says that the poet Rainer Maria Rilke died of leukaemia, not from the thorn of a rose he gave to an Egyptian beauty (there goes another good story.) But a thorn can still kill you, via tetanus.
So I recommend (apart from the obvious things about gloves and not delaying treatment):
- Check your tetanus status, and ask for a DTP shot. (The P is Pertussis (whooping cough), which is on the rise. It's hard enough work in adult-size airways, and it can kill babies: we need to increase the herd immunity. The third component is Diphtheria, which is very rare in well-immunised communities, but it's still out there.)
- Practice your daily living activities with your non-dominant hand, and one-handed. You never know when the skill might be useful.
- And if the redness and swelling go beyond the base of the finger, go straight to the nearest Emergency Department.