With Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon recovering from emergency brain surgery Saturday, his doctors said it was still too early to assess how much damage he had suffered from a massive stroke. Hadassah University Hospital director Shlomo Mor-Yosef said Saturday evening that the latest scan of the brain of Sharon, performed Saturday, shows a slight improvement, but his overall condition remains critical.
An official determination on Sharon's condition will likely take place on Sunday, when doctors intend to wean him off the drugs that are keeping him in what they said is a medically induced coma.
Sharon, 78, underwent five hours of emergency brain surgery Friday that doctors said successfully stopped a hemorrhage and relieved swelling inside his skull. Doctors reported "significant improvement," but said he remained in serious condition.
"There is always some damage when you have cerebral hemorrhage," Dr. Felix Umansky, the chief neurosurgeon operating on Sharon, told The Associated Press. "We cannot assess the damage because he is under anesthesia all the time. We need to wait and see what will happen once we reduce the medication which keeps him under sedation," he added.
Sharon's deputy, Ehud Olmert, was named the acting prime minister and on Friday took calls from U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Rice, who canceled a six-day trip to Indonesia and Australia because of the Mideast situation, told Olmert that "every U.S. citizen, from the president to the last citizen, are praying for Sharon's health," Olmert's office said.
