Meg Roussos / The BulletinDan Reesor with his 4-year-old twins, Ella, left, and Owen inside their home in Bend. Reesor had a liver transplant Friday.

Deschutes County Deputy District Attorney Dan Reesor is slowly recovering from liver transplant surgery on Friday.

The procedure at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center took more than 12 hours, Vicki Kipp, a family friend and colleague, said Saturday.

He remains in the intensive care unit, is alert and knows who is there, according to a Facebook post from Reesor’s sister Sharon True, who is at UCLA with him. His progress is good, but it will be a “very slow long recovery and things can change very quickly. We are feeling good that at this time things are looking positive!” True wrote. “There are more tubes than you could ever imagine which is normal after receiving a transplant.” Kipp emailed True’s post to The Bulletin. “He’s hanging in there. We’re proud of him,” Kipp said.

Reesor was diagnosed with an inflammatory liver disease and liver cancer in January and for the better part of five months fought to have his procedure covered by county insurance. His struggle to get the procedure covered was detailed in The Bulletin on Sept. 14.

After the approval came through, he was placed on the national transplant list Oct. 14, Kipp said.

He was already at UCLA for a procedure to put a stent in a bile duct in his liver, when a liver became available for transplantation.