WOW. I don't have a similar story, but if you can get the "cook me something" guy's head, I will personally volunteer to stuff and mount it on a little---presumably a TINY little---plaque.
Yeesh. I am sorry that stuff happens.
"My predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved;I have been given much and I have given something in return...Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and an adventure." O. Sacks