My Best Friend and Partner...

My best friend and partner...

by Dorraine Storm-Lugo

In June of 1999, after a few years of really having a hard time of everything after losing my mother in October of 1994, divorcing the father of my children, losing my home, and then relocating back to Texas in 1998, only to have more devastation hit my life... 

In May of 1998, I got hurt in an accident while working at a truck stop, as a waitress, very busy night, slipped on some ice, I caught myself from falling flat of my butt by grabbing onto a table, never realizing I did more damage to my wrist than I had done to my foot, I strained the muscles of my right ankle, and was off work for a good bit... I realized I needed a different job, and was accepted to work as a cashier at our local Wal-Mart.... I thought my life was finally going to work out.... boy was I wrong.

A month later, my house burned down with all of my craft store supplies and crafted items, I lost almost everything I had ever owned, and my pets, two beautiful black and white miniature long hair Pekingeses, and a beautiful beloved male cockatiel, named Tweety Bird....who talked with me and danced to my music.... my son and a cousin were in the house when it caught on fire, thank God, they made it out alive and with only minor damage... my son's left eye's retina detached nasally and for a long while, we just went through the motions of existing, our local Wal-Mart donated some clothing, and immediate household items, and that began the long dark journey that I am going to try to describe in this blog, so that all understand, that life's issues really do take a toll on us all...

A month after losing my house, I realized I couldn't turn my right wrist over and it was very painful, I went to the hospital where they determined that the accident in the restaurant had torn all the cartilage in my wrist....and hand and between my bones in my arm...which needed an operation to fix, the worst part is being told at that age you have a birth defect.... my ulna bones are both too long and leaving no space between the bottom of my ulna and the bone that starts my hand...so therefore the cartilage wasn't going to heal without removing a piece of the ulna and putting it all back together with a plate and screws, so here I am in a cast for the next five months.... becoming deeply depressed, and so I decided to try to move closer to my sisters, who lived near Houston, and once again, I thought maybe my life would get back on track, but no.... not yet...it was just going to continue to get worse for a long while to come.

In March of the next year, 1999 my son was injured to his eye, which lead to an eye surgery and I realized within a month that he had lost the eyesight that he had....lived with all of his life, he was Visually impaired from birth, but now he was 15 and lost all of his vision.... that is when the epileptic seizures started up again... the next month or so was the hardest of my life, so I fell down to my knees, crying and begging God to send me a partner to get me through this toughest time of my life, ... needless to say, it was all just the beginning and I think Jehovah knew I was going to need a partner to help me survive it all, the next day I met my Marco Antonio in a laundry mat.... 

How many of you all believe in love at first sight.... we started dating, he proposed within months and we were engaged 9 months later.... we got married six months after that.... in between meeting him and our marriage, my son got sicker, and my daughter moved out of our home, and got married and was expecting her first child... I lost my daughter, and my son as I knew him to be that year, our whole life started spiraling out of control...the only thing I had to hang on to, was my faith in God, that nothing was going to be too strong for me to handle, and my new marriage, that was really already facing trials and tribulations it shouldn't have ever had to face.....

Things were okay, I lost my job and got really sick shortly after our marriage, my son and my husband bonded so well, I am going to be forever grateful for the husband that Jehovah provided me.... for I know without him, I may not have survived my life from 2000-2003.

More to come on that one soon, here are a couple of photos of us, one is from 2005 the month I had my first major stroke, and the next one is from two years ago, right before I had my last one..... <3 

Leona Mae Foundation

Leona Mae Foundation

Founded in 2011

by Dorraine Storm-Lugo and Marco Lugo

In 1994 I was making a crocheted baby bonnet or cap, for a gift for a friend so that she could give it to her friend at a baby shower, I was working on it, while visiting my mother on a two week trip back home to Belton, TX from WA state, where I had moved to only two months earlier... if only I had known my mom was going to be diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, hereditary by the way... I would have put off my move to another state, and cherished my last few months with my mother instead, but as it was a difficult thing... I had chosen WA state for moving our family to, in order to prevent an early death for my son, Christopher, who was literally dying before my very eyes, from uncontrollable Epilepsy.  

Anyways, on August 6th, my dad called me to tell me my mother was in the hospital, where they had just found and diagnosed her with small oat cell Lung Cancer, rapid growing type, which they had determined was a hereditary lung cancer she had lost her mom to when I was just a child, all too familiar with what her mother had gone through during her battle, which was over 11 years of my life, I was praying I would be as fortunate as that to be able to see my mother battle hers for a long while yet, but the next words out of my father's mouth devastated me, they give her 3 months to live at most with the treatments.  I instantly tried finding a way to come home to see her...and possibly stay with her, my trip was planned for 3-4 weeks, but even before I could make all my plans, my father called me back to tell me they found cancer in her bones, and tumors in her brain a few days later..... oh man, my life started a turn for the worse.

I got home to Texas, where everything was so different than it was when I left it.

My mother had lost almost 40 pounds, in just the two months  that had passed since we left Texas... she was just a shell of the person I knew as my Mother.... 

I was crocheting and we were talking about her losing her hair, and she told me... " My that sure is a pretty cap you are making, Dorraine", I looked up at her, and she was holding a small hand full of hair, she had a tear rolling down her cheek... "Maybe you should make some pretty hats for the lovely ladies that are losing their hair like I am...you can make such beautiful things, I am sure that your caps could make the ladies feel pretty when this cancer and treatments make them feel ugly".... I will never forget that.... 

Two days later, I was on a plane back to WA, where my Christopher and Rita were for the first time in their lives away from their Mom.  I instantly found a beautiful soft yarn, in Mama's favorite colors, she loved greens, emeralds and jades..... any shade really.... so I started fiddling around with the hats from baby patterns.... and started one for her... a couple of weeks had went by with all the working up a pattern, it being too small, tearing it back out and redoing it.... when I got a call from my Dad, "Dorraine, they took your mom to the hospital and she won't be coming back home this time...." 

Needless to say, I was on a plane the very next morning, thanks to my now ex-Sister in law.... I will never forget her giving heart that year, two trips home to see my mom before she died, I will never forget that.... 

I made it really late that night from the Austin airport, to the hospital where my mom was lying in a coma... I hadn't made it in time to get to talk to her, because she had drifted into a coma that afternoon. 

My mom died that Friday afternoon, my world started crashing out of control.... and that is what leads us into what is called Stress related diseases..... which will all be covered by other blogs.....

So my mother died at 47 years of age, and her mother had died at the age of 47, and now I am facing 47 years of age, so when I had outlived my mother by one day, I decided I wanted to do something with the rest of my life.....so I talked to my husband and we formed the 

Leona Mae Foundation.... where we give hand made gifts to those suffering from illnesses, and diseases, stresses in life that causes such pain and grief, that affects one's ability to live life normally from day to day... we are not a big foundation, yet, we are however a big hearted one..... 

So my foundation makes handmade gifts and gives them to cancer patients, survivors and their caregivers, to others who suffer from other invisible and visible disabilities in life... to bring cheer and joy to all those who receive a loving reminder from our foundation that they are not alone in this battle called life. 

I will add more blogs about our foundation and its accomplishments from time to time, but this is a start to tell you a little bit more about me... love to you all, Dorraine

An Introduction to Me.... Dorraine Rae Storm-Lugo

Hello everyone, 

I am so truly blessed to still be here, but it has truly taken me over a decade to restart my life.  I am going to start here and today, and try to fill in the blanks as we go.  So here we are, I am going to be writing my story to all of you in the first person but my introduction I had written when thinking of telling a good story to all based on my life, but as a third person effect.....

I am going to start by giving you a few details, I am married, raising two children, nine years of age, and trying to rebuild my life as it was so rudely destroyed between the years of 1998 and 2005... you are wondering what took so long to destroy me.... I will gladly fill you all in.  But for now, lets see what has led me to this BLOG.... I was sitting here at the end of my day on Friday, after closing my office, children were playing, Daddy was  busy, so I was  all alone after closing for the week, and sat here in a thoughtful fog.... here is what came out....

Learning to Live Again

by Dorraine Rae Storm-Lugo

July 11, 2014

Sitting at her desk, she was deeply lost in her thoughts,  she realized she was finally healing, finally starting to live again, why had it taken her this long, when had her life truly started falling apart, when had she stopped living and only existing?  

Her busy day had truly left her exhausted beyond what she was even used to experiencing. This past week she had been waking even before the alarm went off, having set the alarm rather earlier than normal for those days, knowing she had a very busy day in her office, she had a ton of work to get done, so she had been setting the alarm to go off between seven and seven thirty every morning, but something was causing her to be awake even before that every day, even if she had a late night the evening before. 

She was thinking of her hectically busy life, and how she was yearning for more time for spiritual activities and family life; time in the preaching work, witnessing, and time with her husband and children.  She was trying to figure out how to slow down a little bit and take more time for those very important aspects of her life, this past year she had made some good changes, towards regaining herself and her happiness back into her life, making a difference in others' lives, and trying to reconnect to her husband and family.

To look at her, one sees what looks like a normal healthy and happy woman, that is because she has tried so hard for so long to hide the truth and her limitations from all except her immediate family, she was even hiding the whole truth from her children... She had done a good job, hiding the truth from the world for so long, that she didn't know exactly how to start telling the truth, she had thought for a long time to write a story, start a blog, or something, maybe what she has found to cope with and relearn to live with would help somebody else.... who knows. 

So here goes, Welcome to Dorraine's world she thought, ... how is anyone going to ever really know what it is like to live with invisible diseases unless somebody truly stood up and spoke out?  So here I go...

I am going to let you all have a good look see what it is truly like in my world... and learn what it is like when you have to Learn to Live all over again... after such a devastatingly horrific ordeal in one's life before ever turning 41.