Updates/protection

I have been toying with the idea of turning off my computer for periods of time, say a day or two. My concern is say I turn it off for 3 days, then thats 3 days worth of protection uopdates I don’t have. So when I turn on my computer after 3 days and run an update check, how much at risk am I until the updates install? I use Vista on a DSL connection with NAV2008. Just wondering how prone I am to infection until all the updates load and install.