Can you summarize the ARISE study? How are they repairing the aneurysms? When will in conclude? Sounds like you've determined the results are promising?

I understand your concerns, believe me, I have been feeling the same "Just another Guinea pig"
and agree with you "I can't get anyone to agree, let alone tell you the truth, they act like they are dealing with children instead of people with a brain and life expenses and can't handle or understand the issues. The problem is the insurance companies do not want to put out the money for people in their 70s or 80s or older, their bottom line is, delay, delay, delay, they're just going to die anyway, so why waste the resources? So fed up with the excuses coming from these hypocritical asswipes, that fail to live up to their so-called oath.
The Hypocrisy of Hippocrates: Ethics from Medical Oaths
If a doctor’s responsibility is to do “no harm,” One representative facet of medicine focuses on the idea of pain and the obligation of a physician to reasonably attempt to ease the pain or worry of the patient. Especially for patients they deemed terminally ill,
Thus, the classical Oath of Hippocratic Oath involves the triad of the physician, the patient, and God, while the revised version involves only the physician and the patient, reliving the care.
Oath of ethics historically taken by physicians
The Hippocratic Oath is an oath of ethics historically taken by physicians. It requires a new physician to swear, and the pledge is still recited by doctors today. The oath requires physicians to respect the hard-won gains of those physicians in whose footsteps they walk and to gladly share such knowledge with their patients.
Historians widely recognize the Hippocratic Oath as the first-ever delineation of medical ethics. It is still used by 56% of medical schools today. This oath immortalized the idea of non-maleficence or "do no harm."
I, have read several versions of it, and nowhere does it say, but lie to your patients about why they should wait, do not tell them your insurance company won’t pay for it, because it’s too risky. Just keep them coming back and or using and testing different drugs and ideas, in other words false “HOPES”
Sorry, didn't mean to get so long-winded about this.
My prayers and thoughts go out to you and yours, that all are treated more fairly and honestly by this failing program our government allows them to get away with.

This would be reason enough for me to avoid Mass General and I'd be writing scorching letters to the hospital administration and anyone else I could alert to this situation. Find a better hospital, a better surgeon, and ask lots of questions beforehand. It's terrible what happened to you and I'm very sorry. I worry a lot about the newfangled trend of setting specific protocols for things, despite what the patient might require or the doctor recommend. The recent brou-ha-ha about limiting the amount of anesthesia for operations is a case in point. That may have been overblown, but that notion is blowing in the wind.