Giving credit

Why is it that I am giving credit to everyone else but myself? It just isn't me to take the full credit, but I guess that it is time for me to take the credit. I should realize that I had to find it within myself to beat this cancer and that no one else was going to do it for me. I am trying to still understand all that I have gone through. It is hard to realize a year ago that I was in a hospital and really just beginning my journey.  So how do I take credit, I guess by enjoying my life everyday. Most people say that they couldn't have done what I have done. Was I really given a choice? I don't feel like I was but I guess that I was.
I sit and think a lot about the past, present and future. I wonder what is going to happen in the next couple of years. Where did I find the strength to beat this? When something happens to me, how can I continue to only let it get to me a little bit? These aren't what if kind of questions, the answers are inside of me but I don't know what they are. From day one when I found out, I really didn't even cry that much. One of my co-workers reminded me that when I told her that night, that I was easy going about it and wasn't telling her the truth. I wish I hadn't been telling her the truth and it wasn't really happening. It's funny how a person's mind can handle so much if you are strong enough to handle it.
I was looking in my year book today for someone that works with my mom and decided to read the comments. I might be strong, but man do I have a soft heart. Because I promised myself that I would put it all out there, I will share with what I read, but not word for word. My ex-boyfriend Colin wrote that he is was sorry for all the sh** his then girlfriend put me through and to not hold it against forever. It struck me, forever! That is a really long time, and it made me start to cry. No matter what happened in the past, believe me he was forgiven and I never held it against him. When he did pass away we were still friends and that was 5 years after all the drama had happened. I wish he would have fought for his life like I did. I would love to pick up the phone and call him. Maybe that is part of why I have taken this so easily and been so determained. I wasn't going to be the same!!! I can't tell you how many times after he passed away that I would go out and get drunk out of my mind, then lose it and cry for hours on end. I am not a perfect person that has been happy all the time with a great attitude. I am happy now because of what I have gone through to get me to this point in my life. Feeling that heartache is nothing like I had felt before. I literally could feel the pain in my heart and that is why so many times in the last year that I have told myself, you can't give up because you can't hurt the people that know you. I couldn't let anyone else feel that heartache that I did. I have taken that pain and turned it into something positive. I have looked at leukemia as a lesson and not as a cancer. I was given this cancer because I can handle what it brings and I won't let it knock me down. I refuse to let it have a handle on my life. I control what happens to me. I give speeches to people now, because the more that are aware of cancer and what it does to your life the better. I hope for a big impact on their lives. If I can show one person that life is short, take risks, and enjoy all the small things then I have succeeded. I want to take his death and me getting the same awful cancer and make good of it. The people that knew Colin knew what a great guy he was and that he was taken too young, but he has given me the strength to fight for my life because I refused to have his outcome. There was not a chance that I was going to die. I only had like a 30% chance of beating this. I think that even might be a little high on the percentage. I give my 100% into everything that I do and since this was my life on the line, it was going to give my 200%. So, why don't I take the credit for what I have gone through, because I truely believe that I have gotten my strength from others that have passed. They are my angels.