When her sister was diagnosed with cancer, St Columba's nurse Maureen found herself relying on the same service she provided

• Maureen McCaskey

In some ways, the scene was nothing new for Maureen. As a nurse at St Columba's Hospice, comforting dying patients had been part of her working life for 15 years.

But this time the woman in the bed was her beloved sister Linda.

When Linda was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006, she coped incredibly well. Her husband Gordon and their grown-up children, Emma and Gavin, were not surprised – they were used to her fighting spirit. She had suffered from the painful nerve condition trigeminal neuralgia for many years.

Compared with that, the cancer barely seemed to hurt her.

"It was the trigeminal neuralgia that caused the real pain," says Gordon. "She didn't seem to have any pain from the cancer, and she kept on going to the gym – she went to the gym three times a week for 25 years."

She fought cancer with spirit, and it seemed initially that she had beaten the disease – doctors were even able to tell her she was in remission.

Linda made the most of the reprieve and went on holiday to Lanzarote with Maureen and another of their sisters, Carol.

But after they returned, a scan discovered tiny tumours in Linda's liver and pelvis, with others suspected on her lungs. Again, she sailed through chemotherapy, but Maureen, now 49, noticed her sister's memory seemed to be getting worse.

Taking a break from a busy shift at the hospice, she recalls: "Her arm became weak and they sent her for an emergency scan. They just said 'Linda, I'm sorry, it's gone to the brain', but Linda was OK – she was stronger than me."

Back home in Meadowbank, Linda told her family she didn't want to die in hospital – she wanted to go to the hospice.

She chose songs for her funeral, decided she would be cremated in a pink coffin, and was determined to go out in style, wearing some of the quirky accessories Maureen had sported on the 2009 MoonWalk.

Maureen says: "She wanted to wear my pink legwarmers in her coffin, and I bought her this angel to wear and I got one for myself.

"I went up to her house, and I had this bag, and I had my legwarmers in it, and I had this angel. I said 'Linda, I've heard of a baby bag before, but I've never heard of a departure bag', and she said 'That's what I'll call it, it's my leaving bag'."

Linda also took a trip with 12 friends to Stobo Castle Spa, where she confided her fears to her sister. Maureen, with her years of experience at St Columba's, was able to reassure her.

"She said, 'I don't want to die in pain, that's my biggest fear. I said, 'You will not die in pain if you're in the hospice, Linda'.

Last summer, as Linda's health deteriorated, she spent a week at the hospice in Granton to allow doctors to assess her.

"She got in here and she loved it," Maureen says. "The food was great, the pampering, the complementary therapies – she loved it."

With doctors on top of her medication, Linda went home, but it was difficult.

"We had her home for a couple of weeks, but it was a struggle, because we found it hard to get her up the stairs," Gordon explains. "On the Sunday, she was trying to walk about with a frame and she fell, she was upset and she said she wanted to go back into the hospice. It was just great there – they're special people, and the staff just can't do enough for you."

So, in September, Linda was readmitted to a private room. At this point, Maureen stopped work and made the difficult transition from being a hospice nurse to a patient's relative.

"It was very strange. I found it very difficult to cry because I felt this was my work, I couldn't go about screaming and bawling. I sort of had my professional head on, although I was a relative."

She recalls clearly the Sunday the family were all called into the hospice.

"I remember going into the room and she said 'Oh Maureen, I'm going to go now, and I said to her, 'You know now, I'm not staying long either', and I gave her a kiss and I said 'I'll see you again some time', and I went out the room."

Shortly afterwards, as nurses tended to her, Linda died, free from pain, just as she had wished. She was 56.

"Linda died with dignity and the comfort that they gave her – Linda got everything she wished for, everything," says Maureen.

Incredibly, less than a month after her sister's death, Maureen decided she was ready to go back to caring for those going through the same heartache she herself had suffered.

"I came back to work after three weeks, but the thing is there's no time on death anyway, it doesn't matter how long ago people have died, it still hurts."

Seeing her own sister die at the hospice has not changed her approach to her work, she says. And for a very good reason.

"I haven't changed anything I do because of my sister – I can't do anything better than what I was doing anyway. I give my whole heart."

The hospice is quite simply, she says, the best place there is to die and it is clear she is not boasting. She is explaining, honestly, and with passion, what she does, what she sees and what she feels every day at St Columba's.

"You couldn't dream of having a job like this – the satisfaction. Just to make people smile when they're dying, to cuddle them, to tell them, 'Don't be frightened'. I'm so dedicated to my job. I just love it."