23/02/2025

Good Morning lovely people

4 days after sending out this just giving page my gorgeous sister Clara died while having a seizure.

She was in Zimbabwe living her life as she always did - to the fullest.

Clara was one of the most incredibly selfless and beautiful humans I will ever know. Mum, Dad, Amy and I will miss and love her everyday for the rest of our lives.

She helped me write what I first sent out with this page below saying things like “don’t make it sound too serious Gracie”

She also got the chance to donate to the page before she died, she wrote that she will be with me every step of the way and I know she will be.

I will still be running for my beautiful big sister, I guess it is now just a bit different.

Love Gracie x

18/02/2025

Hello lovely people

I decided at the end of 2024 that I was going to sign up for the Madrid marathon … why not…

When I started training, I wasn’t quite sure if it was something I could achieve, however once I decided I was going to raise money for Epilepsy Research institute UK, I knew it was a goal I had to work towards.

Epilepsy Research Institute UK is a charity very close to my heart, here is why:

As many of you know my sister Clara has a very rare form of epilepsy which causes her to have seizures at night or while brushing her teeth with little to no warning.

Clara was diagnosed with epilepsy when she was 8, I was 4 and Amy our middle sister was 6, so as you can imagine it became a very normal part of our lives and something we were extremely used to. When Clara was 12 she was hospitalised and her seizures worsened to a point where she was having around 60 per day. A paralysis called ‘Tod’s Paresis also set in, affecting different parts of her body at different times. 

It was a horrific period for Clara and everyone who loves her. After many months and a raft of different drugs, the doctors tried something new (immunoglobulin- go give blood pretties) and her seizures drastically lessened to a point where she became seizure free for 8 years. If it weren’t for the amazing effort of Epilepsy Research Institute UK and other similar organisations, they would not have found this ‘cure’.

The research that stopped Clara’s seizures for such a long period of time helped her to have a normal teenage life - one that when we were little we could only have dreamt of. She was back to being our annoying (and wonderful) older sister.

4 years ago her seizures sadly returned, and the regimen of drugs started again. Nothing recently tried has worked YET, but we and her amazing team will keep trying! Clara’s epilepsy is very rare - but then so is Clara - endlessly kind, selfless and with an incredible attitude to living life to the max.

Money raised for epilepsy research has the potential to change not only Clara’s life but countless others who live with various forms of epilepsy, some unique to just themselves. I would be so so grateful for anything you can give, big or small.

Thank you, and see you on the other side of ‘one of the hilliest marathons’…….

Gracie :)