Merle Davis Merle Davis

On Tuesday morning Merle was taken to the emergency room in Madelia, by his wife Bonnie. Merle was confused, vomiting, numb, and could barely walk or talk. When he got to the ER they took his blood pressure and it was 204/135. They did a CT scan and found that it looked like he had an aneurysm but couldn't pin point where.  Just to be sure they flew him to Rochester. When he got to Rochester he had another CT scan and an angiogram.   These tests confirmed he had an aneurysm. He went into surgery around 4pm and surgery lasted about 5 hours.  First they put in an external ventricular drain on the right side of his head to help drain cerebral spinal fluid from his ventricles.  Since they weren't draining themselves.  Merle would be in a sleeping state due to CSF buildup since his body wasn't draining it itself.  Then they performed a craniotomy on the left side where the subarachnoid aneurysm ruptured.  The surgeon's clipped the aneurysm to make sure that the specific aneurysm doesn't cause any future problems.  After they clipped it they took a CT scan and saw he had a "mini stroke" due to the aneurysm being clipped.  There were vasospasms that happened to the nerves that were clipped.  In Merle's case the aneurysm ruptured due to high blood pressure.  It was a massive aneurysm.  When the aneurysm ruptured, blood deprived the brain of some oxygen on his left side which is why he has weakness on the right side of his brain.  He will be in the ICU for at least two weeks.  No visitors at this time.  He is in a very critical state and he gets very irritable with commotion.