During Your Hospitalization

What can I expect during my hospitalization?

• Following your recovery in the Post Anesthesia Care Unit, you will be transferred to a room in either the intensive care unit or the neurosurgical unit. A multidisciplinary team will be taking care of you. After your surgery, you will progressively regain your baseline activities, including drinking, eating, urinating, and walking. We will need your participation to optimize your road to recovery.

What can I expect regarding pain management?

• It is normal to experience some postoperative pain. It is our goal to make whatever pain you experience tolerable. In order to appropriately treat and manage your pain, the hospital staff will ask you to rate your pain on a scale of 0-10 (0 is no pain, 10 is the worst pain).
• On the first night after your surgery, if needed, you will be given pain medication through your veins until you can safely swallow pills. By the day after surgery, you should have transitioned to oral pain medications.

Can a family member stay with me overnight?

• All hospital beds in Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center are private rooms. Neurosurgical unit rooms include a day bed where one family member can sleep. The intensive care unit rooms do not have day beds.