Thanks for the rep! BTW - "Hope for the Best, Expect the Worst" comes from the title song to an old Mel Brooks film, "The Twelve Chairs".
The Twelve Chairs Soundtrack : Hope For The Best Expect The Worst - YouTube
If you have the opportunity, you should try to see this film. It's funny, but not in the slapstick, bawdy humor way that you associate with Mel Brooks.
But the song, in particular, I feel is good advice for how to approach the kind of news you and I have faced:
1. Maintain a sense of humor;
2. Be optimistic - even when they give you bad news (they could be wrong, after all!)
3. But just in case - have something prepared to say, in case the news is very bad. You can't just sit there and blubber.
Thanks again, and remember - "The grass is always greener, when you're on this side of it!"