What is the main conflict in Animal Stories by Jason Brown?

"Animal Stories," Jason Brown's story of a young man grappling with his mother's imminent death from a brain tumor, has received widespread acclaim as the work of a strong and up-and-coming author. In 25 and Under/Fiction, an anthology containing "Animal Stories," Brown notes that he wrote this story when he was twenty-two and his mother was in the hospital for a successful operation. "My relationship with her was bad enough that I had not gone to visit her. The guilt drove this story on," he remembers.