Laura Lee

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When Lisa Stephenson started falling asleep in board meetings she put it down to the tiredness of juggling her hectic life.

The Bank director was working 70 hour weeks and flying between her Edinburgh home and London office.

" My colleagues would nudge me awake and it happened regularly, " the 52-year-old said.

" To physically fall asleep in a meeting is very embarrassing especially because I was always on my A-game and very driven.

" I felt really tired, absolutely exhausted. "

But she carried on and it was only after an annual medical through Her Job , as a director at Lloyds Bank , that Lisa received a call from the Western General Hospital to say routine blood tests had flagged up a problem.

She had a rare incurable blood cancer.

" It was Easter Monday and we were having breakfast with Our Children when I received The Call saying I was to come in now to the oncology department, " she told Bbc Scotland .

" I said they had the Wrong Number and when they persisted I said I think you have the wrong person. "

'In denial'

Lisa, who was married with Two Children , then aged 14 and eight, drove to The Hospital on her own, thinking her iron levels were maybe just low.

" The penny still hadn't dropped when The Consultant took me into a room, " She Said .

" He Said 'you have multiple myeloma' and I told him I had Never Heard of it and that he had the wrong person. "

The Consultant showed her charts and told her the cancer was incurable But that it could be treated.

She Said : " I asked what my Life Expectancy was and He Said at best five years and that The Treatment was tough, and that I was so bad I needed to start The Treatment straight away.

" I had an important meeting The Next day and He Said you can't go to London as you have to start chemo now. "

Lisa said that she was " in denial" at first and tried to hide it from work and her family But that The Doctor said she would have to tell people as The Treatment would make her very ill.

" I played it down and was Still Going to work, But I was so poorly. "

Ten Years later Lisa has had chemotherapy and stem cell treatment and she spent seven years on a trial drug, which she came off in 2019 to give her body a break " from the toxic poisons".

The myeloma affects her blood. It destroys her white blood cells, which are needed to fight infection.

She has had hundreds of blood transplants and has had pneumonia and septicaemia. She often feels very unwell and nauseous.

Lisa started going to The Maggie 's Centre in Edinburgh a few months After Her diagnosis in 2011.

The Charity provides free professional emotional and psychological support to people with cancer and their families.

This Week it is celebrating 25 years since it opened The First Maggie's Centre at the Western General Hospital . It now has 24 centres.

Maggie's centresWhen Maggie Keswick Jencks was 47 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. After hearing this, Maggie and Her Husband Charles Jencks were moved to a windowless corridor where they were left to process The News . They discussed The Need for somewhere " better" for people with cancer to go, outside of But near to The Hospital . Maggie also wanted to bring people together in a calm and friendly space that would help them to find comfort in the experiences of others. Maggie and Charles, an architect, designed The Blueprint for the centres. The First Maggie's opened in Edinburgh in 1996, and now there are 24 centres across the UK and abroad. Maggie died shortly before The First centre opened, at the Western General Hospital - But with the support of Charles, and her medical team, including her cancer nurse Laura Lee (now Maggie's CEO), her vision has lived on.

" It's My Family 's default, Our Place of safety and my first point of call when I Am worrying about The Future , " said Lisa.

Maggie's has been a " huge support" to her and her children, never more so than when she tragically lost Her Husband , Peter, to a rare heart virus just two years after she was diagnosed with cancer.

And as well as benefiting from the classes and therapy the centre provides, Lisa has also become an active fundraiser for The Charity .

The former bank director, who had to give up work to focus on her treatment and battle with cancer, said supporting Maggie's had given her a new purpose.

" My Life is a lot quieter now from The Days of catching red eye flights to London and not Returning Home until late, " She Said .

But through her charity work she has raised £1. 6m for Maggie's.

Andy Anderson , a former oncology nurse and head of Maggie's Edinburgh for The Last 21 years, told Bbc Scotland that the idea of the centre remains as it was when it first opened - to offer people like Lisa and her family a homely space away from hospital wards and corridors.

" We want everyone to treat Maggie's centres like their own home, " He Said .

" There is a kitchen area where you make your own cup of tea and places to be quiet But also where you can sit with others.

" It's a Big Family here and it's a safe place to be heard. "

Source of news: bbc.com