Garn, Daughter in Good Condition After Transplant

The conditions of Sen. Jake Garn and his daughter were upgraded to good on Thursday, as they recovered from operations in which the senator gave her a kidney.

Susan Garn Horne, 27, was in “extremely high spirits” and had a healthy appetite, said Nancy Saenger, a spokeswoman for Georgetown University Hospital. The 53-year-old senator was a little nauseated but otherwise fine, Saenger said.

The Utah Republican donated his left kidney to his daughter on Wednesday in operations that lasted almost six hours. Horne needed the kidney because diabetes, diagnosed when she was 10 years old, had caused her kidneys to progressively fail.

Dr. G. Baird Helfrich, the surgeon who transplanted the kidney, said Horne’s new organ began functioning minutes after the surgery. The first month after the transplant is the most critical period for rejection problems, he said.

Garn, who interrupted his reelection campaign to donate the kidney, is expected to remain in the hospital for about a week. His daughter will be there a little longer, hospital officials said.