A hot-tempered first born son must choose whether to return to medical school, or to stay home to care for his sick father, against his family's wishes. Based closely on the time in filmmaker Dan Slottje's life when his mother became ill with a brain tumor, and subsequently, the summer following her successful surgery, when it fell on his brother and him to care for her. Porcupine Hugs is a truthful confession of this shameful period in time that should have brought their family closer together, but unfortunately, pushed them further apart.
