Sarah Pullen - A Mighty Boy: A Mothers Journey Through Grief

Sarah Pullen is a full-time, often-harassed mother of a bundle of boys. She worked as a features writer for a national newspaper and for a bank in the City of London, then disappeared into the windy North Downs in Kent to raise her family. A Mighty Boy is a book she wishes she hadnt had to write but felt compelled to. It is her first book.

Dear Reader,

The book you are holding came about in a rather different way to most others. It was funded directly by readers through a new website: Unbound. Unbound is the creation of three writers. We started the company because we believed there had to be a better deal for both writers and readers. On the Unbound website, authors share the ideas for the books they want to write directly with readers. If enough of you support the book by pledging for it in advance, we produce a beautifully bound special subscribers edition and distribute a regular edition and e-book wherever books are sold, in shops and online.

This new way of publishing is actually a very old idea (Samuel Johnson funded his dictionary this way). Were just using the internet to build each writer a network of patrons. At the back of this book, youll find the names of all the people who made it happen.

Publishing in this way means readers are no longer just passive consumers of the books they buy, and authors are free to write the books they really want. They get a much fairer return too half the profits their books generate, rather than a tiny percentage of the cover price.

If youre not yet a subscriber, we hope that youll want to join our publishing revolution and have your name listed in one of our books in the future. To get you started, here is a 5 discount on your first pledge. Just visit unbound.com, make your pledge and type MIGHTY in the promo code box when you check out.

Thank you for your support,

Dan, Justin and John

Founders, Unbound

To All My Boys

B.O.R.I.S.

Always just a smidgin

With special thanks to Mark and Emma, Tanya and John Crone, Jan Pilkington-Miksa, Patrick Spens and Olivia Gideon Thomson for their generous support of this book.

If you knew how great is a mothers love,

Wendy told them triumphantly,

you would have no fear.

J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan

T here is a moment I wish my son dead. I wish for him to be killed instantly in a car crash. I even speak the words out loud. What sort of mother must I be? Can you imagine wishing your child dead? Its not something I would ever have thought possible, not until a stranger in a crisp Italian suit and polished leather shoes tells me that my 10-year-old son is going to die in a matter of months. That its inevitable. That hell die a tortuous and undignified death that will rob him of his personality and the essence of his being long before his heart finally stops beating. Wouldnt you too find yourself wishing for a quick death for the child you love beyond reason, a child that has never been ill a day in his life?

We stand in a small hospital playroom, my husband and I. The wreckage of cheap plastic toys lies strewn across the floor, the room pulsates with garish colour and the surfaces are tacky with the residue of hundreds of sticky little fingers. We are awash with emotions and the floor rocks with invisible waves. I reach out a hand to steady myself on the wall. Across the room from us perches a consultant with an unpronounceable name. He reminds me of a hawk talons gripping, eyes watchful, all-seeing and powerful and I realise, with a start, that we are his prey.

The consultant has introduced himself and we have shaken hands. His grip is cool and his palms dry, these small things I register, but neither of us ask him to repeat his name. We are both too focused on the news we know he has come to impart. He has ushered us from our sons hospital room and swept us across the corridor into this playroom.

Over the next few months we learn that this bedside exodus happens everywhere. Good news of any nature will always be delivered by our sons bedside, the consultants relief palpable in the smile creasing his face, whereas bad news always takes us into dark corridors or starkly lit empty rooms. We come to dread those words and the unspoken meaning behind them Shall we find somewhere quiet to talk? So much information and heartache imparted with a few harmless words.

On this day, though, we are novices to the game and still have optimism and hope crammed in our back pocket. I notice that the consultant refuses to hold my gaze. His dark eyes dart between us, avoiding making contact for more than a few seconds. My palms grow clammy and my heart starts beating loudly in my ears. The man keeps calling my husband by the wrong name, Sam not Ben, but we dont correct him.

He looks at us with clinical detachment and draws his lips together. A frown furrows his forehead. I catch a glimpse of pity flit across his face, then his professional demeanour takes over and the shutters come down.

He points to a couple of chairs and gestures for us to sit. We squeeze into the tiny, brightly coloured childrens chairs. A crayon mark slithers across the lino tiles by my feet and my eyes follow its convoluted course to its abrupt end. I keep my eyes on the floor.

The consultant waits until we are lined up in front of him and then asks, Do either of you have a heart condition?

I look up and catch Bens eye. We shake our heads. The same thought pushes through the fog in our brains. We are here to talk about our sons health not our own.

Thats good, says the consultant, ignoring our confusion. He takes a deep breath and gazes out the window for a second at the grey London skyline. Sounds of a busy hospital drift under the closed door: the squeak of a trolley wheel on linoleum, a tap running in the sluice room, the squeal of a child running up the corridor. Ben shifts on his chair and the leg scrapes on the floor. Prompted by the noise, the consultant begins to speak. A stream of words flows from his mouth, each one tumbling over the last, as though a dam has burst.

Weve had the pathology results back. Your son has a high grade glioma in his left parietal lobe. Its suggestive of a glioblastoma multiforme. It has been partially resected but we couldnt fully remove it because of the risk of right side hemiparesis. He pauses. I try and decipher his words but they slip and slide away from me.

The bile rises in my throat and my fingers tingle as the blood drains from my limbs. I feel what is coming. I know it in my bones as only a mother can.

His voice comes from a distance; its silky smooth but every word grates in my mind. I want to scream at him to stop. Whatever he has come to say will not be real until it is spoken out loud. I want to stick my fingers in my ears and chant nonsense to prevent the words from getting through, but I cant move. My muscles are deaf to the clamour of my brain.

He has an aggressive brain tumour. One of the worst. We couldnt take it all out as we didnt want to risk paralysing him on one side of his body. He pauses and takes a deep breath. Theres nothing we can do. Theres no successful treatment for this type of tumour. He looks hard at us and his lips start moving long before my brain actually registers his words. Im sorry but your son is going die. He has 1218 months with treatment and only a few without. He drops his eyes. Black spots crowd my vision and I dig my nails into the palm of my hand to stop the scream that is working its way up my throat. He continues, each word thudding into my chest. Some families choose not to undertake any treatment. Well support you whatever you choose. There is no cure.