I have a follow-up appointment on Wednesday.

I've been keeping track of how often I take a pill and a half of the muscle relaxer (which is what the good doctor has told me I can do if I feel like I need it). Its been more often than not.

I'm ever-so-tired of feeling like I've been thrown from a horse, then trampled by the Budweiser Clydesdale team on their way to a commercial shoot. I try not to complain much in real life because if I do, I'm met with either being ignored or eye-rolling. Of course, that's a lot better than what I've had to deal with since last night.

I'm not going to say which family member has said this- but I will say it was not the disabled guy. He's the one who ignores it for the most part. He also says- in response to any complaint- "I know, you tell me you feel like shit all the time. I get it."

No, this was someone else. I was lamenting that I was tired of feeling like hell. I said, "I'd like to take the dogs out or go to the store, or hell, even walk up the stairs without feeling like I'd just crossed a goddamn desert."

And you know what I mean, right? You get that I mean worn out, exhausted. In pain and drained of any kind of energy or drive. You get that. No, what I've had to hear since I made that analogy is constant mocking.

I sighed while in the kitchen. "Oh, come on. Its like standing in the desert, you're not walking across it."

I was putting on my boots to leave the house and paused because the weather came on TV. "Jeez, you're only putting your boots on in the desert, you're not walking across it."

This afternoon, after doing laundry and going to the grocery store, I started to go upstairs. I stopped at the bottom to grab hold of the railing and take a deep breath before I tackled the stairs. "You can do it! You're only walking up the stairs to the desert, not crossing it!"

Those are just the ones I can remember. There are a lot more. And I'm tired of it. And I've voiced the fact that I'm tired of it. I repeated that I said I don't want to feel as if I've walked across a desert at the end of the day.

I'm tired. Worn completely out. I used to feel like this after working all day. Working, not sitting at a desk. When I was a kid, I used to go to the horse stables on the Army base and offer to trade work for horse-riding time. I did anything- I cleaned stalls and paddocks, I painted barns, I cleaned tack, I hauled feed buckets and hay. And if a horse owner was kind enough, I got to ride. I would fall into bed at the end of the day- exhausted. But with a reason.

Here I am now, worn out and drained from doing laundry and going to the store. I don't keep track of how often I take the dogs out or how many times I go upstairs, but its more than a few.

I try not to complain too much on my Facebook profile, because I know how irritating it can be for others to constantly read whiny updates and I much prefer to be in the good graces of my friends there. As it is, they have to put up with my psychotic photography addiction, link-spamming of upcoming novels or even awesome radio shows.

Of all the people in my life though, its my online friends who care the most. Mostly, I think, because I don't see their eye-rolling and if they're taking something I said out of context and beating it to death, I'm not hearing it. Or... maybe, just maybe, they actually do care. I know I don't tell them enough, but I appreciate knowing they care.

Before I start rolling my eyes at the mushy crap I'm typing, I'm going to point out that you can Shake Hands with Danger through podcasts now. You have no excuse not to listen because you can listen any time.