Then there's those people Taylor doesn't really know at all, who somehow find out about his illness and crawl out of the woodwork to tell him "how courageous you are," and "how much we're praying for you." Taylor will find that being sick is its own form of infamy, and that as his friend Barry points out, people can't help but treat him like a sideshow freak -- some will feel pity, some will be repulsed, and some, like the gorgeous Gwendolyn from his office, will even want to seduce him. Indeed, Gwendolyn, who never noticed Taylor before he was ill, suddenly starts to find him immensely attractive, which will lead to a particularly embarrassing moment involving laxatives, fruit trees, and oral sex.

And all this while preparing for his surgery: cameras up his rectum, CAT Scans, blood tests, examinations; it's a brand new adventure for Taylor, and one he'd much rather leave to Indiana Jones. It only gets worse in the hospital, when recuperating from surgery, Taylor truly realizes the horrible depths of his situation. From a snoring and vomiting old melanoma patient in the bed next to him, to being awoken at 4 A.M. each morning and poked with all varieties of needles, Taylor is convinced he is being punished for his many sins and been deposited in the lower bowels of hell.

However, he soon meets Lynn Piegi, a leukemia patient on the cancer ward who's more than his match in the sarcasm department. Driven together by their common illnesses and irreverent senses of humor, Taylor and Lynn quickly form a bond. Having known sickness longer than Taylor, Lynn shows him the ropes of hospital survival -- introducing him to the joy of listening to bad folk musicians who come to cheer up the patients, and teaching him the fine art of how to steal extra portions of jello.

Together they will laugh, fight, pelt nurses with food, and struggle to stay physically and spiritually alive. Eventually Lynn will force Taylor to confront the seriousness of what's happening to him, and to realize the flaw of his own casual indifference to the world and his own life; he will then have a choice of whether or not to change from this experience, or retreat into his well worn leather jacket of apathy