We don’t do that much work for charity personally, until now.

On December 23 2006 cousin was taken from our lives forever, here is our family's story by Natalie Treadwell.

It was like any other xmas excitement was in the air, everyone was dashing around buying food, last minute presents, going out with friends.... until that morning when the whole world melted away. ‘Sudden Unexplained Death’ perfectly named if you ask me, simply explained to us as an adult version of Cot Death, I had never heard of it before, but as my parent have come to realise through conferences they attend – thousands suffer the consequences every day. Due to my sister having a fit in the previous 18 months the Coroner announced the cause of death as ‘Sudden Unexplained Death in Epilepsy’ (SUDEP).

This is the charity we wish to raise money for by running the Great Birmingham Run (1/2 Marathon).

The year Kathryn passed away, that June it was her 18 birthday. She was offered medication for her epilepsy but she turned it down as she had just started university and wanted to enjoy the university experience and not have the drugs interfering with her studies. If she had been more aware of SUDEP would she have taken the medication and enjoyed more of the university experience and the more of a life than she had hoped for? We will never know - but I would like to help somebody else’s family understand and help those families that have been torn through the loss of someone who didn’t deserve to go.

Her name was Kathryn, she was truly beautiful inside and out, she was intelligent, funny and quirky in a special way that made her lovable. Her funeral was breathtaking the amount of people that attended made your heart ache. The number of lives she touched for such a young age I am proud to have been her Cousin for the short amount of time that I knew her. She wanted to be a librarian or a historian and I have no doubt she would have achieved her goal – she was both ambitious and determined, if she only would have had the chance.

Terrible, tragic things happen every day to everyone around us but sometimes it is too hard to share – today I have shared with you the worst time in our family's life so that you will help me share the facts about SUDEP to those who need it most.