It was another disturbed night with many toilet breaks and a great deal of heavy lifting. The lifting burden now falls entirely on me as Euan hurt his shoulder badly preventing Isobel falling backwards onto the windowsill yesterday. It was almost 9am before Isobel woke finally.

After breakfast Iona arrived and we all sat on the bed chatting until just after 11am when Wendy Williams 'phoned to say that Tracey Cook was on her way with forms to sign and a personal statement was required from me; she would be in a hurry as she had to be at Queen Mary's Hospital by noon for the committee meeting. I was concerned that we had not fully demonstrated the seriousness of our problems yesterday, but did not need to make any effort to appear as a totally shattered carer when Tracey Cook appeared at half past eleven. I signed various forms and hastily scribbled a personal statement including a "the last time my wife died from a brain tumour in 1974" reference which should make the bureaucrats think carefully. It appears that input from the crisis team and the Ellenor Trust has been linked up with yesterdays assessment, the recommendation is for urgent residential care. Tracey even seem prepared to offer some help in the house over the weekend, but, on the basis that she was guaranteeing a permanent solution by the middle of next week, I said we would gallantly struggle on over the weekend.

Iona spent the afternoon upstairs with her mother, then went home. I was due to see Dr Patel at 5.40pm, planning originally that Euan would mind his mother while I was out. Claire offered to take Euan out for the evening, collecting him after work and I suggested he should have a break, especially as he was not able to help with lifting. I arranged for Liz to cover while I was at the doctor's and Keith came over with her. Dr Patel confirmed my very high blood pressure reading but the heartbeat was OK and the lungs were wheezy. As expected the problems including chest pain were likely to be due to stress, muscular strain and tiredness; these were causing a resurgence of asthma, increased heart-rate and high blood pressure. I will need to start using the relievee inhaler as well as the preventer inhaler and as a precaution will have some blood tests next week. We arranged that next Tuesday Keith and Liz will come for dinner, bringing the first course with them.

Isobel had chicken casserole for dinner, followed by apple and blackberry crumble. She was settled down for the night by 10pm. Euan arrived home at 1.20am.