Studies show those who are overweight or obese are at greater risk for many diseases. While studies can’t conclusively prove that obesity causes cancer, there is growing evidence that higher amounts of body fat are consistently associated with increased risks for developing certain types of cancers.

Thyroid nodules are common and found in 10 percent of the adult population. Luckily, 95 percent of them are benign. When a thyroid nodule is suspicious - meaning that it has characteristics that suggest thyroid cancer - the next step is usually a fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB).

What if a simple daily practice of clearing your mind and breathing slowly could help you feel better, sleep better, reduce pain and anxiety and reduce your risk of cancer recurrence?

Everybody has bad days, but nobody tells you how to handle them. The times where you feel hopeless, anxious or paranoid. When you feel angry that cancer will always be a part of your life, scared that it may come back or frustrated that side effects from treatment might never go away.

I hope you will take a moment to write down what you want your 2017 to be. And whether you are in the middle of treatment, completing treatment, or newly diagnosed, trust that you will get to a place where you can say, “I'm happy, and I am alive.”

With only a few days until Christmas, I’m doing everything I can to channel that strength and use it to begin 2017 on a grateful and optimistic note.

There are certain times of year when my cancer story makes me feel incredibly isolated. There’s the time surrounding April 14, the day I was diagnosed, July 29, the day I was deemed “in remission” and, the one I’ve experienced most recently, the month of October.

We are approaching that bittersweet time of year when we gain an hour of sleep but lose an hour of sunlight. At 2 a.m. on Sunday, November 6, most Americans will set their clocks back one hour as daylight saving time ends.

For every amazing, caring friend, there’s another who has drifted away. The one who wholeheartedly promised, “if you need anything, I’m here,” and wasn’t. There are just some friends, for whatever reason, who won’t be there for you, even if you really want them or need them in your corner.