Greg Ostertag awoke from his kidney-donation operation a braver man, the Jazz center said on national television Wednesday, aware that his pre-surgery jitters were unnecessary.

"It taught me, 'Don't feel afraid of things.' It's not as scary as everyone made it out to be," Ostertag said on CNN's "Wolf Blitzer Live," his first public appearance with his younger sister since he gave her one of his kidneys on June 27 in Dallas. "I was in an operating room for 2 1/2 hours, I went to sleep, and that's all there was. The nurses bothered me a lot when I was trying to sleep, but other than that, everything went really well. . . . I would tell people, 'Don't be afraid.' "