Are You a Hero?

All you have to do these days is get cancer and not die and suddenly you're a hero. A survivor. You battled the disease and won. It's just my opinion but it seems to me the heroes are the researchers who came up with the treatments and the doctors and nurses who administered them. And what about all the people who battle cancer and don't live? Are they pathetic losers or can they also be heroes? And if they can, then what's so heroic about surviving a disease?

And if you stay healthy and eat right and never smoke or drink or do drugs, in fact never battle anything at all, then what are you? Can you be a hero if you survived a root canal, or a kidney stone, or narcolepsy? (People do die from that, you know.) What about hip surgery? Or does it have to be worse, like you have to be raped and survive that, or be held hostage and survive that? A battered wife can be a hero, so how about a battered husband? Is he also a hero? And how do they stack up against all the military heroes who fought in actual wars defending our country? Are there levels of heroism?

Just asking.