Father-of-two from Urmston marries partner at home after terminal cancer diagnosis

A father-of-two who was given just months to live after finding out he had incurable cancer has married his partner.Mark Jones, 45, from Urmston, Greater Manchester, thought a painful lump in his stomach was a hernia after a running a half marathon in December 2021.But after a series of tests, doctors confirmed that he had kidney cancer, and he had just months to live.

Mark, who lives with his new wife Sarah and daughters Sadie, three, and Poppy, eight, said: "I knew there was something wrong. Naturally, you're just thinking for the best. Cancer is the last thing on the list."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."

Doctors then told Mark the cancer was already so advanced it was 'incurable'.

"That was a bit of a shock", he said. "It all happened so quickly. 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."

After sharing his story on social media, he received hundreds of messages of support.

Mark, who still unable to walk and spends his day bed-bound, hopes his story will encourage other men to check themselves for signs of cancer.

He said: "Ultimately, it's kidney cancer and it's just spread everywhere. It's incurable.

"There's nowt we can do, it's all about how long we can keep me alive now."

Mark tied the knot with his now wife, Sarah, during a short ceremony at home with their daughters and close family.

He said: "We talked about it in the past. You don't think 'we need to do this now'. But when it happened, we thought crikey, we need to do it."It all worked out really well. Someone came in from the registry officer. It's a huge milestone in unfortunate circumstances, but I'm really happy we did it."

A group of Mark's closest friends are planning to walk the route of the Manchester Marathon to raise money for Macmillan Cancer support.

They are asking people to donate to the fundraiser, taking place on Sunday, 13 March, here.