His illness has changed his life for good. "I have become a Vegan," he reveals. "I don't eat any dairy, cheese, milk, meat or whatever. My tastes have changed � fish and meat taste wrong to me. I don't know why that is; it's not a moral thing to me. I would have eaten all the cows you could send down the hallway to me. I just no longer like the taste; that's the problem."

While the infection will never fully leave his system, he's determined never to fall so ill again. "I can really see why old people die," he reflects. "I don't know if I would be this strong a second time around."