An "active and sociable" dad-of-two has vowed to keep fighting after he was diagnosed with incurable cancer.
Mark Jones was training for a marathon when he found a lump in his stomach in December.
The 45-year-old first realised something was wrong in the weeks approaching Christmas as he became increasingly tired and began experiencing pains in his back and the side of his body.
After initially presuming the symptoms were signs of a hernia, he later received the devastating diagnosis that he had kidney cancer.
Mark, who lives in Manchester with his wife and two young daughters, has since been given just months to live.
"I thought it was a hernia at first. I'd been training for a marathon so I'd run a half marathon a few weeks before," he told the Manchester Evening News.
"Naturally, you're just thinking for the best. Cancer is the last thing on the list."
After visiting his GP and being sent to hospital for scans, Mark received the heartbreaking news last month that he has cancer.
"They confirmed it right out of the blue," he said.
"They said it had spread to my spine so they needed to do radiotherapy to shrink the nodes so I can move and walk.
"I was straight in hospital and had radiotherapy on the Saturday. I lost use of my legs because they put me into spinal shock.
"I had ten sessions of that for three weeks, not really understanding how bad it was.
"I didn't say anything to anyone at first because I wanted to understand what the prognosis was."
He explained it came as "a shock" when doctors told Mark the cancer was incurable as it was already so advanced.
Mark said: "As soon as I knew, I told my family and friends that unfortunately they're going to lose me.
"There's no way I'm going anywhere in two months. I'm going to keep fighting and stretch it out for as long as I can. If I can get to Christmas, amazing."
Mark, who worked in IT, says he is keen to explore treatment options so he can spend longer with his loved ones and on Thursday, he tied the knot with his partner Sarah.
On March 13, a group of Mark's closest friends will be attempting to walk the Manchester Marathon route to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support.
A fundraiser for the event has already raised €18,760 (£15,500) to date.
