The tears came in a rush as Renada Daniel-Patterson stood outside the hospital room where the father she had met only twice lay in bed, flanked by two prison guards.
David Patterson, a convicted burglar, was about to donate a lifesaving kidney to the daughter he deserted before she was born."Thank you very much for giving me a chance. I love you," Renada, 13, said Tuesday in a mix of words and sobs as she hugged her father for the first time in years.
Patterson, 34, held the daughter he has never really known and talked to her softly. "I'll be there," he said. "OK?"
The surgery at the University of California at San Francisco Medical Center lasted three hours. The teenager and her father were in stable condition Wednesday, doctors said.
Renada's mother, Vickie Daniel, planned to stay by her daughter's bedside through the night.
"If she could scoot over, I'd climb in with her," said a tired but smiling Daniel, 35, who also had shed her share of tears throughout the day.
"Now," she said, "they are tears of joy."
Doctors said it will take weeks and possibly months before it is known whether Renada's body accepts the kidney.