I have a table where each row has merged cells. when I populate this table with data (numbers) and try to graph, the graph is seeing the adjoined merged cell data as zeros. I can't figure out how to factor these cells out.

My exampe with merged cells:

year 1 year 2 year 3 year 4
2000 4000 3200 6400

what the chart sees

year 1 year 2 year 3 year 4
2000,0, 4000,0, 3200,0 6400,0

Please advise