A young woman found out she was dying from a rare form of cancer after initially being told a lump on her breast was nothing to worry about.
Dorita Delle Donne, 32, went into hospital back in 2020 for a check-up on a lump she found on her left breast.
However, a hospital member reportedly told her "don't worry" and that the jump was instead just as a "benign cyst".
It was a year later when Dorita, who lives in Ealing, West London, was finally diagnosed with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer.
It's a particularly aggressive and rare form of cancer that is currently incurable.
On the first day of her gruelling treatment, Dorita was unable to attend her father’s funeral in her native Italy.
She then found herself unable to work in person and, as the restaurant manager at one of Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants, had no choice but to step down in order to be able to work from home on a different team due to her ill health.
Dorita’s partner of six years, Ester Sanna Ferraiolo, works from home alongside her and, at times, Dorita is forced to take work calls from her hospital bed.
“Dorita never cries,” Ester, 32, told MyLondon.
“She’s always smiling - she’s the strongest woman I've ever met. But although she puts on a brave face for everyone, there must be a lot of pain there must be behind that smile. Because it must take so much effort to pretend that everything is alright when it’s not.”
Ester, who is also originally from Italy, explained that Dorita "began her journey with hope".
She was able to access an experimental treatment free of charge and, at first, responded well to it.
“But after seven cycles, she stopped responding to the therapy,” Ester added. “She has now started palliative care but she hasn’t given up. We remain focused on finding anything in the world that might turn out to be the cure.”
Recently, the couple were told of CAR T-cell therapy - a line of treatment that could potentially save Dorita.
But at £280,000, the treatment is not currently accessible to her.
“We want to be able to have funds available for treatment at short notice because time is the most important thing when it comes to cancer treatments,” said Ester, who has since set up a fundraiser on GoFundMe.
“But in addition to using the money for treatment, I also want to make Dorita happy. I’ve asked her to start putting together a bucket list and there are many places she wants to see and restaurants she wants to visit.
"We have many dreams together. One of them, which she also put on her bucket list, is for us to get married.”
The couple, who met while working at a branch of Franco Manca in London, currently live together in a one-bedroom flat.
But the cost of living has caused Ester to feel concerned about their financial situation. She said: “We are worried about a lot of stuff. We both work but the cost of living is going up. Everything is going up in London - the rent, transport, everything.
“We’re also far away from our families in Italy and we’re having to face everything alone. We would love nothing much than a hug from our loved ones right now, which is why we’d like to use some of the money to move to a bigger flat, so we can host our relatives here while also being able to pay for our rent and bills.”
The couple have since received thousands of pounds in donations and felt overjoyed upon being offered a £50,000 donation from an Italian savings bank, Cassa di Risparmio di Ravenna Foundation.
“One of the reasons we decided to be open about our story is because this is not the type of illness you can fight alone,” Ester said.
“Each donation is like a message from some saying ‘you’re not alone and I want to fight with you’. And it’s important for Dorita to see that. If her story reaches 300,000 people and everyone donates just £1, Dorita can continue to hope. She could have access to any treatment available, bring her family here to support her, and finally start to tick off some of her dreams from her bucket list.”
To donate to Dorita and Ester's fundraiser, click here .
