Cathy Jamison is a suburban Minneapolis high school teacher, wife and mother with less than a perfect life, despite it perhaps seeming so to much of the outside world. Her life is given a major shock when she is diagnosed with melanoma, the first news of such to her being when it is at advanced stage IV, meaning that she will most likely succumb to it within short order barring some extreme or radical intervention. Cathy goes through a myriad of emotions concerning the diagnosis, including how she will deal with it in relation to family, friends and people close to her in other ways.