I can fully believe he is a wimp and that he indulged his inner bully once he had the HII. I even speculated in the vote thread that he could easily exaggerate any pain or illness as a result of his pampered life.

Thing is, even if Dr. Ramona had correctly diagnosed a bacterial infection on the island without the proper testing equipment to verify it, he would have had to be pulled from the game. He's not a Samoan with built up resistance and tolerance for some of the exotic nasty bugs out there, and there have been more than a few cases of life-threatening infections requiring hospitalization and sometimes aggressive treatment.

So, a sick guy has a bad night, finally got some sleep, woke up feeling cruddy but at least had gotten some rest. Day stretches on, it is a tropical island, it gets hotter and skankier, he gets worse and worse, ends up slithering into the jungle to lay on the ground in the shade crying for his mama. Meh, it's not a Stephen King novel, not that Stephen King couldn't make a novel of it, one of his lesser efforts but it would still be gnarly.