Garn, Daughter Who Got His Kidney Leave Hospital

Sen. Jake Garn (R-Utah) and his daughter Susan Garn Horne, each declaring, “I’m feeling great,” walked out of Georgetown University Hospital today, exactly a week after he donated one of his kidneys to her.

With Susan at his side, Garn told reporters, “We couldn’t be more pleased with the outcome” of the transplant surgery performed Sept. 10.

“It’s exciting to know she’s got that old space kidney working inside her,” said the senator, who flew aboard the space shuttle Discovery in April, 1985.

Dr. G. Baird Helfrich, chief of Georgetown’s division of transplantation, said Horne, 27, “has experienced no rejection activity,” and passed her one-week benchmark with a perfect “10.” If no signs of rejection develop in the next three weeks, “and I wouldn’t expect any,” he said, “she will go on with her life.”

Georgetown surgeon Ian J. Spence described the 53-year-old Garn, who never before had been hospitalized, as “an absolutely model patient. . . . He arrived at Georgetown University Hospital in excellent health and is leaving in the same condition.”

Horne had suffered from progressive kidney failure due to a diabetic condition.