AN “INSPIRATIONAL” financial planner from a Wrexham company is to run the London Marathon in aid of a children’s hospice charity just a year after having a kidney transplant.

Rhys Owen, 34, who works for Hadlow Edwards Wealth Management Ltd in Wrexham, is back on the road to fitness after his loving younger sister donated one of her kidneys to him.

He says he has been given a new lease of life following the operation in February 2020 and as a way of thanking sister Hannah, 26, he is resolved to make the most of his future.

Although he “hates running with a passion” but he is still determined to take on the long-distance challenge, an opportunity afforded to him when his firm were approached by Oswestry-based Hope House as part of regular fundraising activities with the company.

Rhys stepped forward even though he had been in hospital undergoing his kidney transplant operation only months earlier.

He said: “I thought to myself that what I have been through is nothing compared to what some of these children and their families are enduring.

“I have been given this renewed chance at life, the opportunity to regain my fitness and return to full health but for some children there is no such hope.

"They deserve all the support we can possibly give them even if it means pushing ourselves well out of our comfort zones.”

Although the operation at the Royal Liverpool Hospital went well his initial post-op recovery period was not easy going.

He said: “My sister has a different blood type to myself and as a result my body started to reject the kidney.

"It meant I needed a highly specialist drug but we had to get special permission from the Welsh Assembly to administer the drug as it cost so much money per dose."

After writing to the Welsh Assembly Government, permission was given for Rhys to have four doses of the drug Eculizumab over four weeks at a cost of £250,000 per dose, resulting in 50 per cent kidney function.

He says he now has a lot more energy than he can remember having before and his sister who lives in Handbridge, Chester, and is a keen athlete herself has also fully recovered.

He said: “Hannah has always been into high energy sports including triathlons and so the London Marathon seems nothing in comparison to what she does.

"It’s a sort of tribute to her that I am taking this on board.”

Rhys, who lives in Bangor, has been in training since June, going out at least three times a week and slowly building up his running distance.

He is grateful to Hadlow Edwards for arranging for him to work at home during much of the pandemic when he was categorised as extremely vulnerable and at risk of Covid-19.

He is hoping to raise at least £1,500 from the run for Hope House/Tŷ Gobaith Hospice, which also has a base in Conwy.