I dunno if I imagined (dreamed?) it but I could have sworn I saw Agent Wood mention in a post she'd had cholera. I'm impressed, the best I've managed is concussion and amoebic dysentry (not at the same time). As exotic places visited as been done, what about exotic diseases you have had, also spectuacular accidents (bonus points if caused by equally spectacular stupidity).
Clearly this could become a bit of downer if someone turns out to actually be _dying_ of something, or has something that is ruining their life, but hopefully it'll be 'unusual diseases now safely recovered from'. Though in the context of this thread a terminal disease would probably constitute 'winning' - unless someone has managed to contract Dutch Elm disease or break every bone in their body while trying to leap the Grand Canyon on rollerskates.
For me: the concussion was a result of attending primary school back in the days before children were mollycoddled and wrapped up cotton wool, and when school buildings were not designed with namby-pamby concern for bleeding-heart liberal concepts like health and saftey. Back when schools, quite rightly, operated on Darwinian principles - one of which being any kid who didn't look where he was going while running deserved to trip over a 6 inch high wall with a 6 foot drop onto concrete on the other side. Clearly any child with a skull insuffiently thick to survive such an impact would never fit in at an inner city comprehensive anyway, and should probably be removed from the gene pool early.
Also it was in pre-litigious days when teachers didn't call an ambulance merely because a child claimed to be seing bright flashing lights, and when the complaint of not being able to 'see straight' produced the entirely reasonable teacherly response of 'can you see round corners then?'. I did manage to get sent home from school early though, when I resorted to the cunning poly of vomitting uncontrollably all over the classroom. Shamefully my parents were made of weaker stuff than the school authorities and so I ended up wasting days under observation in hospital.
Dysentry was just the usual result of an Englishman going to India. Forget Atkins, the D-plan diet is what you want - 4 stone loss in 3 months. It was like water from a fire extinguisher.