Georgia Byrd, an employee in the cookware department at Kragen's Department Store in New Orleans, is a shy, unassuming woman who longs to cook professionally, and who records her dreams of a better life in a journal labeled "Possibilities". It is the Christmas holiday season. While flirting with a co-worker named Sean Williams, she bumps her head on a cabinet door and is taken to the store's health center for a CAT scan. There, she is told by company physician Dr. Gupta she has several brain tumors resulting from a rare neurological disorder called List of fictional diseases#In film. Since her Health maintenance organization will not cover the exorbitant cost of an operation, Georgia resigns herself to the fact she has only a few weeks to live, quits her job, liquidates her assets, and sets off on a dream vacation at the deluxe Grandhotel Pupp in the spa city of Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic.