In some previous posts about my first surgery with Dr. Jaime Schwartz at Total Lipedema Care, I mention that I stayed at Pearl Recovery Retreat in Beverly Hills for two nights, and promised that I’d do a quick review of my stay.
Prior to my stay, I’d found Pearl by looking on my doctor’s website. I emailed them about availability and pricing, and signed paperwork, providing them with a credit card, in advance. I also had a covid test done in LA for my surgeon, and the surgeon’s office provided the negative test results to Pearl in advance. Everything was taken care of. Apparently Pearl is a great place – it’s where celebrities go to recovery from surgeries, and enjoy the privacy and extremely attentive level of care.
Because my surgeon requires you to have an adult with you for 24 hours after surgery, the surgeon’s office asked me several times who would be staying with me and when I told them Pearl Recovery, they were like, “oh, yep, no problem, we work with them all the time”.
After my surgery, I had help putting on compression and then was, what seemed like, immediately, put into a wheelchair and taken downstairs where a black Mercedes and a nurse were waiting for me. The nurse helped me into the back seat of the tinted out car, and we chatted during a very short drive to the Viceroy hotel, where I had dropped my bags off before heading to surgery in the morning.
The nurse pulled up to a closed gate, swiped a pass and drove under the hotel until we arrived at a red carpet. She had a wheelchair waiting for me, and helped me into it, rolled me up the carpet and directly into an elevator. As we got into the elevator, she whisked me to my room, which was already opened up, and everything was covered with absorbent pads already. There were three other nurses in the room waiting to greet me and help me into bed. They took my vitals, grabbed my med bag, and brought me ginger ale, crushed ice, and crackers.
The room was inside the actual hotel, and very nice. It had a balcony looking up to the Hollywood Hills, a huge dressing and makeup area, a very nice shower and bath, a sofa, several chairs to sit in, and an office space. The room also had a hospital type food table, and a vitals station on wheels. The mega large closet also hid an espresso maker that I found on the last morning of my stay.
Over my 48 hours there, they took excellent care of me, bringing my meds when it was time, bringing snacks, checking vitals, changing and cleaning the drains, visiting with me, and changing the absorbent pads every time I got up.
The food provided is light, which is perfect for post surgery. They want you to eat a little something with meds, so they brought me a lot of apple sauce. On the first evening, I started taking an antibiotic and asked if they had any yogurt. The nurse said no that they were out, which was fine. But the next morning two yogurts showed up. I later found out that nurse had gone to two convenience stores to find me yogurt and paid for it out of pocket! That was just so nice!
I chatted with the nurses and told goofy stories (as I do), and learned that some of the nurses were from Russia, so I practiced my Russian and we shared pictures of places we’d been there. The nurses told me that they didn’t always have patients that were kind, and took the time to learn all their names, and they enjoyed having me as a patient, which made me feel good too.
During the first 48 hours, I hadn’t started swelling too bad yet, so I felt good. I got up and walked around, put on my makeup, and tried to do some very light standing yoga to help with healing. And having folks pamper me helped with that too. I honestly didn’t have anything to worry about besides resting while I was there. They drove me to post op appointments and picked me up, and any time I needed anything all I had to do was text the nurses’ station and they were almost immediately there.
What else I think was great about this stay is that they took the time to teach me how to take care of myself after surgery. The showed me how to manage the drains, how to ‘milk’ them and track the output. They taught me how to watch for infection and elevate my legs properly. They gave me the confidence to do the next surgery with a shorter stay and know I’ll be fine.
So I’m going to answer the next questions that I get all the time in emails and private messages. Yes, it was expensive ($2200 a night). No, insurance didn’t pay for it. I had to pull from savings to have the care I felt I needed when being alone due to covid protocols. Now that being said, it included the room, 24 hour nursing care, food, transportation. They charged an additional $30 for medical supplies, which is more than fair. If you had travelled alone, you’d have to handle all the arrangements, pay hotel and food and then private nursing care is $1375 a day, and one day minimum is required. I feel like it was fine because, again, I had nothing to worry about.
A couple of other things to note: you are in an ultra luxury, but public, hotel, but the recovery center has a wing or a block of rooms with a nurses station in the viceroy hotel. Your door is always unlocked and very slightly open so the nurses come and go. Some folks don’t like this, but plan accordingly and don’t bring a bunch of valuables. I never felt unsafe (It’s not on the bottom floor of the hotel, also). You can order room service and it is charged to your bill if you want more than light meals – I didn’t need this. I did bring my protein shake mix as it was required by my surgeon, and I had three a day while I was there in addition to snacks and oatmeal with berries.
At the end of the stay, they bring you a bill to the bedside to sign. On it, is an additional 15% that you can approve or disapprove as a gratuity for the service – I of course approved it, and left a little extra in a thank you card because I really felt the nurses had treated me so well and went above and beyond to cater to everything I could need during my stay. I also left a nice review on Yelp, and will stay there during my next surgery in April.
When checkout time came, a driver came and got me and I walked (my choice) to the elevator, back down the red carpet, and got into a big black Cadillac. The driver took me to my hotel where I’d stay on my own for the next five days, and helped me with my luggage as I made the move.
I hope you enjoy a few pics of the room and the balcony, and a video of my being a goofball when I found the espresso machine on the last day. I hope this helped someone, especially if you have to travel alone for whatever reason. I recommend this place wholeheartedly.
