Imagine waking up in bed with railings on both sides to keep you from falling on the tile that covers the floor. Monitors and machines make a beeping noise only described as a continuing annoyance while you were sleeping. The atmosphere has the feeling of a hospital but when you've been here for so long, it's like a second home to you. Well, that's what it was like waking up everyday during my stay at Magee Rehabilitation Center in Philadelphia, PA. 
My nurses aid, Dave, took an unusual liking to me; probably because I was the youngest person on the floor and he had grown sick of dealing with the elderly.
He came in speaking with his home grown, West Philly accent, "Man, you ever gonna get outta bed? It's damn near ten and you got therapy in a half hour." 
I had just gotten my tracheostomy out a day earlier so my voice was still croaky and my words were hard to make out. 
"Yeah, I'm just waiting for my meds from Jackie and we'll get up," I replied feeling the air escape the now closing hole in my airway.
Jackie was my morning nurse. She was beautiful by nature but you could tell she was the kind of girl that you see at the beach doing shots off a surfboard and blacks out before 10. Besides that she was alright; she got to know me pretty well and I was able to have a good relationship with her. 
Once she gave me my meds, Dave would help me to get dressed for the day. Sweatpants and a T-shirt. The only outfit suitable for the day of work I had ahead of me. The overhead lift used to lift me out of bed was basically a harness with a handlebar. Simple in design but effective use.
Then came the device to this day I'm still being forced to use to this day; my wheelchair. I hated the damn thing, especially the one at Magee. It was a motorized wheelchair with a rectangular headrest and a little joystick used to drive.
After i would get myself ready for the day, brushing my teeth and doing my hair, which by the way was an amazing head of hair if I do say so myself, I would make my way to the gym and begin my therapy session. 
The early stages of therapy were some of the toughest and most grueling tasks I probably ever have to endure. 
I had two women therapists, Elisha and Amy. Both were thoughtful and had a strange elegance to them. Elisha, tall for a girl, with eyes like pools of blue, long brown hair that was way to straight to be considered natural and an award winning smile. Amy, a little shorter, had big brown eyes and auburn hair which normally I didn't like on girl but she pulled it off and made it look pretty. 
I would make my way to the gym passing other patients, some worse then me which made me feel grateful but others that were much more functional which made me think to myself "why me? What could I have done that was so horrible to deserve this?" See the extent of my injury was a C6 spinal cord injury, which is the cervical portion in the neck. This left me only to feel everything above my chest and nothing else and only the limited use of my hands and fingers. I went from 150 lbs to 100 lbs from my surgery. To put that in perspective, my girlfriend weighs more then that and I'm ten inches taller then her so if that doesn't give you a mental images, I don't know what will.
Back to my therapy, the early stages were obscenely difficult. Since I had no feeling from my chest down and I weighed as much a loaf of Italian bread, my balance was atrocious so I always needed something to lean on whenever I got out of my wheelchair. 
I'm not going to get into the details of therapy just yet but my day mainly coasted from here on out consisting of many naps and hanging out with other patients on my floor. 
To sum it up, the day in the life of a Magee patient isn't normal or easy or even fun half the time but your not there to have fun. Once you get there you instantly realize that you're never going to have to work so hard in your life, but you can't help but love every second of it.