As far as personal harm during the actual soldering, it's not hard to use lead solder safely.
You have to breath it or ingest it for it be dangerous. In soldering it does not get anywhere near hot enough to vaporize, so really all you have to worry about is ingestion.
As long as you either don't touch the solder, or are careful after touching it to not touch anything that may find its way into you until you can thoroughly wash whatever parts of you touched the lead (or were touched by parts of you that touched the lead), you should be OK.
The biggest health risk during soldering is going to come from the flux. It's the flux burning that produces the smoke you see and smell during soldering.
You have to breath it or ingest it for it be dangerous. In soldering it does not get anywhere near hot enough to vaporize, so really all you have to worry about is ingestion.
As long as you either don't touch the solder, or are careful after touching it to not touch anything that may find its way into you until you can thoroughly wash whatever parts of you touched the lead (or were touched by parts of you that touched the lead), you should be OK.
The biggest health risk during soldering is going to come from the flux. It's the flux burning that produces the smoke you see and smell during soldering.
Here's a document from LBNL on safe soldering practices that goes into the components of solder (leaded and lead-free) and their dangers: http://www2.lbl.gov/ehs/ih/pdf/safeSolderingFinal.pdf