He survived, found paulingtherapy.com and the rest, as they say is history.
We'd heard he stopped the vitamin C and started smoking, which still may be true, but he sent me the following "update"...
When are you going to finish a book? You may want to add to my story that next month I will be 62 and that I feel and look better than I did when I was 50. I am more active than I have been in years. People often tell me how much younger I look than my age. Very soon Jessica and I will be married, she is not yet age 20, we are very much in love and we have been for going on 2 years. She wants babies, and after months of saying no, I have decided to become a start-over-dad at 62 and plan to live to see my children grow. If a man in the shape that I was in can turn his life around in just a few years then those who are not on their death bed should be able to achieve even more with a few life changes.
Jessica and I have decided not to become a media attraction, we have already caused too much public outrage here in rural NC.
Jeff