Jared Maynard used to be arguably one of the fittest men alive.The father-of-three from Ontario, Canada, was an avid bodybuilder and powerlifter, regularly training six times a week while working as a physical therapist. So when he came down with a case of the sniffles in January 2023, he shrugged it off as a cold that he would easily fight off. But in just a matter of days, his skin turned yellow and he gradually became delirious. Maynard rushed to the hospital, where a battery of tests revealed it was not a cold but hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH), a rare and life-threatening condition where the immune system starts to attack the body. It attacked his liver and kidneys, putting him into multi-organ failure. Doctors determined the disease, which kills 40 percent of patients, in Maynard's case was caused by Epstein-Barr, a virus that can lay dormant in the body for decades and normally leads to mononucleosis, or the 'kissing disease.' Maynard was placed on life support and hospice care for nearly two months before miraculously starting to recover. And, due to muscle wasting, it took another two months for him to relearn how to walk, sit, stand, speak and even breathe on his own.He thought he was in the clear, but then five months later his peripheral vision started to disappear. Jared Maynard is pictured with his wife and children before his battle with hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis Maynard, pictured in the hospital in 2023, spent several weeks on life support and hospice before having to relearn how to do everything