You can change details of the stories to protect the privacy of people you’re not friends with, you know. You’d only run afoul of HIPAA if you allowed someone’s identity to be known, NOT if you tell a “I once knew a man who…” story.
I don’t think it was that he was trying to make himself sick. It was more like he felt that winning a fight with his brother was more him important to him than his own health. It sounds like he knew the consequences, but decided to risk it simply out of spite.
And I believe he had to spend four years in a nursing home as a result.