Love and Marriage: Tackling Two Bouts of Cancer Together

Janice and Rex Cowden have been married for 41 years, and the couple have shared many life experiences together, including two bouts of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC).

While Rex had just retired, and the couple was selling one house and moving into another, Janice was diagnosed with stage 1 TNBC in 2011. The couple placed their plans to travel on hold and tackled the disease together.

Five years later, Janice’s disease would return. She was diagnosed with stage 4 TNBC in the summer of 2016, and the couple continued to attack the disease as a team. 

In this week’s episode of the “CURE Talks Cancer” podcast, Janice and Rex Cowden discuss what it was like to be there for each other during those cancer journeys, offer advice to other couples who may find themselves in a similar situation, and more.

“Sometimes fear can produce emotions that … comes out as anger. I see a lot of relationships fail, marriages fail as a result of this diagnosis, some people simply can't handle it,” Janice said in an interview with CURE®. “I think getting therapy is a wonderful thing that you can do. And I also think it's important for you to learn as much as you can about your disease and to share that information with your caregiver ... because I think lack of knowledge makes us feel even more helpless and anxious.”