Third cancer found during surgery for metastasis of second

I swear, I am starting to wonder if my body is some kind of cancer generating anomaly. I had breast cancer in 2010. Then colorectal cancer in 2021. This year after tracking a growing lung nodule for months, a biopsy confirmed that I had a met of the colorectal cancer in my left lung. So, off to see the surgeon I went to get that sucker cut out. She told me that she’d be doing a segmentectomy to remove one of the three segments of my left upper lobe because the tumor was too large for a wedge. She also said she would take out any other spots she and/or the radiology team thought looked suspicious. I had the surgery on Aug 30. She told me that she took out the segment we had planned, plus did two wedge procedures to remove two other spots. I just got the pathology report via my patient portal last night.

There was nothing new to learn about the metastatic tumor. The first wedge (taken from my lower left lung lobe) is nothing of concern. I have a history of severe allergies and asthma and that spot was just leftover from some past infection. But the second wedge, which was taken out of my upper left lobe, turned out to be an entirely different kind of cancer. It’s a Typical Carcinoid Neuroendocrine tumor (NET). So this is literally my third different cancer.

The good news is that it’s a low grade typical carcinoid, which means it’s slow growing and not as likely to spread. None of the lymph nodes tested showed any sign of either the colorectal cancer or the NET, so that’s also great news. Generally, the prognosis is considered excellent, but I can’t help but get hung up on the fact that I have now had three different cancers with one known to have metastasized and I’m only 52.

I’ve put in a call to my oncologist to set up an appointment to discuss next steps and get more info about this new cancer. I’ve already done a lot of research and know that surgery is considered curative. They got decent margins and there’s no indication of it having spread. Also, chemo and rads aren’t all that effective for this thing, so I really don’t know if they’ll even be on the table. The one thing I don’t know is whether or not it’s common to only have one NET or if it’s likely there are more hiding somewhere that are thus far too small to pick up via scans. The only tumor that lit up on PET was the metastatic colon cancer, so the NET doesn’t take up the radioactive marker. I think it showed up on CT though. The problem is that I have numerous lung nodules that date back to the severe allergy/asthma years. Picking out which ones are marginally larger than in the past is the only way to target potential issues.

I guess I’m venting more than anything here. I’m not a pessimistic person, but it feels like my body is trying to kill itself at this point. Cancer sucks.