Why are we so hesitant to call ourselves brain injury 'survivors'?

It is impossible to read about someone who has had cancer who is not referred to as a 'cancer survivor'. Yet I rarely see those who have survived anoxic brain damage, or have awoken from a 10-day coma, or have been knocked cold for 10 minutes in a collision call refer to themselves as survivors.

I thing this is another manifestation of the 20th century shame that still lingers almost 10 years into the New Millennium. Cancer survivors are proud that the walked through fire to the other side, and they should be. But survivors like my son, who at age 17 arrived at the Trauma Center with a Glasgow Coma Scale rating of 3, lived through those frst 72 hours, awoke from a coma at 5 days, cried when he had to re-learn how to hold his bowels, and walk and swallow -- and 6 months later walked across the stage to accept his high school diploma wearing gown and mortarboard hat - who has a greater right than he does to call himself a SURVIVOR. As for me, I call him a hero, my hero - one of a handful of heroes that I ever knew, who taught me how I could survive if my time should ever come. And boy, did it ever!