This past week I was actively practicing setting expectation. With Henry Gray. When I outlined a plan for him such as—you will practice your numbers from 30 to 40 then you can get some screen time. He easily meet his goals. When the expectations are set we have an easier time getting through processes. 

At the hospital we have been given highly optimistic expectations a number of times. When this expectations are not met, we end up feeling down. Lately we have been setting lower expectations when we are getting new of a plan.

John Lee has been doing great releasing the fluid build up from the surgery. When this started happening the doctor were optimistic and started talking about closing his chest the next day. As usual the next day was put off to the next day or two. It was Thursday night when when he started passing the fluid positively. Initially my reaction was to expect for a Sunday closing of the chest instead of Saturday.

It is Sunday and we just heard from the attending Physician. He said:

“He is looking good. At this point it would be harder to close his chest. We need to get more fluid off of him.  If we can get 200 off today, another 200 tomorrow and same the day after it would make it easier to close his chest. We are at a higher risk of infection, if we need to we will do a chest washout to decrease that risk. Otherwise the best course is to ride the 200-off wave until he loses enough fluid. If the risk for infection gets higher, or his blood pressure drops again then we will move to close his chest.”

The nurse translated this as to saying, the closing date is tomorrow, but if they can push it we will be looking at a later day. This would mean that they will perform the chest washout tomorrow. We are looking great. He is still passing fluids.

They had to stop the diuretics last night and give him more fluid due to lowered blood pressure. He’s back on the diuretics again.

So the possibility for Wednesday it is.