| Director | Herbert Ross, Joseph Sargent |
|---|
Young pregnant divorcee Kate falls in love with struggling musician Sam Hayden, and they become a couple, eventually getting married. A few months into Kate and Sam's relationship, Kate gives birth to a daughter they name Jill. Although Jill's biological father is Kate's former husband, David, Sam loves Jill and regards her as his own child.
Shortly after Jill is born, Kate gets the shocking news that she has an osteosarcoma, which is a bone cancer. Kate has two options to treat her cancer: she can either have her leg amputated and hope the cancer does not spread, or undergo chemotherapy. Unwilling to lose her leg, Kate initially has chemotherapy which makes her very ill and unable to function in her daily life or look after Jill. Kate then decides to forgo treatment entirely and concentrate on being a wife to Sam and a mother to Jill in the short time she has left, since not treating the cancer will hasten her death.
Kate agrees to take part in a medical research study by keeping a recorded journal in which she describes her feelings about being a young wife and mother facing death. After Kate has been journaling for some time, her tape recorder is stolen, causing her story to gain national attention. She receives a replacement tape recorder and continues her journal until she dies at the end of the film.