I went in to see Isobel with Derek and Jane at 10am. Derek is a sensible person and took his magazines in and sat quietly in the corner of the room reading them after the first few minutes of the visit. Isobel was awake when we arrived.

I was very relieved to find that had Isobel changed little from my previous visits. The right hand was slightly swollen - it was so minor that I had to get Jane to give a second opinion. It has been noticeable over the past few weeks that Isobel has been using her right hand less. If she eats a biscuit, fruit or chocolate her natural tendency is to put the food into the left hand and raise it to her mouth. She has always been naturally right handed. I have been encouraging her to use the right hand sometimes for eating while I am with her. She has been on steroids all the time since January 2008, but there is not much sign of general body bloating as a result. She has put on a lot of weight (after losing a lot in 2007) as a result of her enhanced appetite. There is no doubt that there is swelling of the neck. She still found rotating the head to the right difficult - she was unable to turn the head very far past the straight ahead position. The swelling is no worse than it was on Sunday. The range of movement might be a little worse than Sunday. She has no problem with the right leg. I am not sure that there is any general problem with the right hand side of the body, although almost any problem could develop at this stage. Isobel said that she was not feeling any discomfort.

Isobel's speech was usually clear although she did not say much. She did not want anything to drink and ate only a token half dozen grapes. She was relaxed and had not missed the lack of visitors yesterday. She was pleased to hear about her mother's eighty first birthday yesterday.

I think we left some time after 11am. Iona was going to go in after work tonight but I have not spoken to her since.