Terminal Cancer Survivor Says Return to RE/MAX is Breath of Fresh Air

Take it from Denise Delatorre – a terminal cancer survivor and successful entrepreneur: Now is the time to invest in yourself and your community. Coming from someone who has endured intense adversity, Delatorre has one piece of advice she’d like the world to know, “Without hope there is no future.”

In June 2015, Delatorre was told she had a “very treatable cancer.” The real estate agent with RE/MAX Select One in Laguna Niguel, California, began therapy for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, one of the most common blood cancers, but by December 2015, her doctors sent her home to die. Delatorre recalls her doctors saying, “The chemo didn’t work, and you have six months to live.”

Real estate literally saved Delatorre’s life. One of her clients knew she had cancer and sent her an article in the Los Angeles Times about a clinical trial. Thinking of her son, Delatorre called the oncologist leading that clinical trial at UCLA for CAR T cell therapy. CAR T cell therapy trains a person’s own immune system to kill cancer cells.

Delatorre was the first patient treated with CAR T cells at UCLA.

“I had over 30 tumors when I started the trial,” Delatorre recalled. “My whole body was riddled with cancer, the largest tumor was 7×4 inches.”

Like most cancer patients, Delatorre was receiving a standard cancer treatment of chemotherapy before the trial, including two infusions that lasted 96-hours. All had failed.

“I’ll never forget the look on my doctor’s face when she told me the chemo hadn’t worked,” Delatorre says. “She said this is the part of the job that I hate, chemotherapy failed, and you have six months to live, make plans. I drove home, pulled my son out of work and told him I was so sorry I wasn’t going to make it.”

“I had to dig down really deep to find the strength to join the clinical trial. My son is my life and I am his life, I just couldn’t bear leaving that kid. So, I fought the good fight.”

Delatorre’s doctors began to see the effects of the CAR T cell therapy almost immediately. The 32 tumors quickly dwindled to six in just one month. And today, after a strong battle, Denise has no tumors – and no trace of cancer.

Talk about a change in life perspective.

There’s no doubt Delatorre’s near-death experience has made her resilient. But this trait started long before her diagnosis of cancer. Successful entrepreneurs often have shared traits of perseverance, focus, determination – and a bit of a competitive streak. It’s a survivalist mentality.

With over a two-decades-long career in real estate thus far, Delatorre started out in property management for the rental industry and had an eight-year stint in the mortgage industry before becoming a full-time real estate agent. She was recruited by RE/MAX Broker/Owner Stuart Thomas and the first year she began working with him, Delatorre closed more than $1 million in sales.

“The local newspaper needed a headshot of me for making the President’s Club and I didn’t even have time to get a professional picture taken I was so busy, so my son took the photo in front of a blank wall in our house,” Delatorre fondly recalls. 

Though Delatorre was achieving great success, she made a move to Keller Williams in 2016 following her diagnosis. Drawn to the competitor’s charitable program, Delatorre was exploring potential alternatives to traditional cancer treatment should the clinical trial fail and wanted to find out whether this program could be a resource to her if her illness progressed.

“Right away, I couldn’t find the right fit,” Delatorre says. “The first office I joined at Keller Williams lacked the organization and administrative qualities I found to be crucial in processing closings and commissions in a timely manner.”

Delatorre found this same problem at the next Keller Williams office she joined and was being heavily recruited to join a third independent brokerage when she decided she needed to make a change.

“I couldn’t take any more chaos or additional variables thrown into my life at this time,” she says. “My focus needed to be solely on beating cancer and building my business.”

“My experience at Keller Williams showed me it’s a recruiting company. I spent all my time being trained and paying them to train me. The most important thing I learned from having cancer is that time is the most valuable thing I have,” Delatorre says. She wanted that time back to focus on her business and sell houses again.

Having stayed in touch with her former RE/MAX office manager and knowing her former broker always had her back, Delatorre came back to the RE/MAX family in 2020.

“It was like a breath of fresh air,” Delatorre says. “I felt this burden had been lifted off of me and I could focus on what was important in my life again.”

Cancer wasn’t the only battle Delatorre has had to fight and win. Operating out of a suburban city in Orange County, California, COVID-19 and stay-at-home restrictions became the new reality for Delatorre and RE/MAX Select One in March 2020.

“I am immunocompromised from my fight with cancer, and I was scared hearing about the coronavirus and knowing it would be difficult for me to operate my business,” Delatorre says. “I was used to social distancing before it was popular.”

Delatorre called her broker and unbeknownst to her at the time, he was at his son’s birthday out of state and took the time to hear her concerns and strategize with her on how to maintain and build her business safely throughout this crisis.

“We talked about virtual tours and the best way to go about filming,” Delatorre says. “This is what I love about RE/MAX and admire and appreciate about Stuart. It’s not about being untouchable as a broker. It’s about being in the trenches with your agents and that’s exactly what he’s doing so I know I am in the right place.”

Delatorre’s new motto is “virtual is the new reality.” She’s taken this time to build her website and invest in herself.

“It’s always been a dream of mine to develop a really beautiful and informative website demonstrating the area expert I’ve become through my years in the business,” she says.

Delatorre has been studying the economy, adjusting her business accordingly and mentoring new agents because she wants to give back to her community.

 “When I work with new real estate agents, I tell him they have to go out there and get that experience. It doesn’t matter how many times you’re told how to do something, once you have lived through the experience, that’s how you advance,” Delatorre says. “I’ve been doing this for over 20 years, have lived through a lot and have made a lot of mistakes, and I feel that has made me a better real estate professional because I’ve learned how to do things the right way.”

In the future, she sees herself running a team and looks forward to sharing the valuable life and business experiences she has learned in her years with others. She is also working with a nonprofit to mentor other immunocompromised people who have to navigate going back to work in this COVID-19 environment.

“The most important message I can share is to stop and listen,” Delatorre says. “If my client and I hadn’t had that meaningful conversation years ago and had he not told me about the clinical trial, I would not be alive today.”