Author: Nana

My Mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in May of 2019. She was no longer able to live on her own. After a two month stay at a Senior Behavioral Unit, where she was treated for dementia and schizophrenia, I brought her home to live with me and my husband.

Mom’s dementia manifested with loss of memory and delusions. She seems to only live in the moment. Anything that has happened, or was said, a minute ago is forgotten. This means asking the same question every few minutes or not remembering something she was told a moment ago. Her delusions can be actual events remembered wrong or totally unconnected to anything in reality. For example, I picked her up at the hospital and drove her the four hours to my home. Now every time we are out and pass a car dealership, she will say “That is where I met you the first time I came here.”

Because of one of Mom’s delusions, she had not spoken to me in three years. Something in one of our phone conversations had triggered her. She decided that I had called her liar and that I was no longer worthy to be her daughter. She disowned me. I tried a few times to call her, but she would either hang up on me or her tone would be so cold, that it broke my heart. My mom and I had always been so close. She was my best friend that I could always talk to about anything and rely upon for good advice.

When I found out she had been hospitalized, I decided to take my chance and go and visit her. I had no idea how she would react when she saw me. Much to my surprise and delight, when she saw me she said, “Oh, my Sonja! I’m so glad to see you!” So during the two months she was there, I drove the four hours to visit her as often as I could.

The Senior Behavioral Unit is a temporary solution. Basically they use medications and therapy to stabilize patients mentally and physically. So, once that was accomplished the decision of where mom was going to live became the next step. I checked on nursing homes in the area around her home. I worried how a nursing home would affect her mentally and physically. With medication mom was doing fairly well. She was able to go out shopping, visit restaurants and even hold a good conversation. Someone who only met her for a few minutes would not know she had Alzheimer’s.

So, after putting in the work to become mom’s Guardian and Conservator, I brought her to live with me. It has been wonderful, terrible, nerve wracking, fun, stressful and life changing. And I am so glad I did it!

Covid-19 has given me plenty of time to garden this year. I have been off work for the last couple of months, “sheltering in place”, so gardening has kept me sane.

Here are a few photos of my garden in progress.

This tree sits in the corner of our courtyard. The limbs are perfect for hanging birdhouses and plants.

So… right before Christmas I decided to buy myself a gift.  I had read so many good things about the Instant Pot that I just had to try it. If you are not familiar with an Instant Pot, it is basically an electric pressure cooker.  My main hope was that it would speed up the process of cooking dinner.  Usually it is almost 6 pm before I get home from work everyday, so it can be 7:30 – 8:00 before dinner is ready.

I was really surprised at the versatility of the Instant Pot.  I was hoping for a tender, juicy pot roast in 30 minutes rather than an hour and half in the oven, but it can do so many more things!  It is a slow cooker and a pressure cooker.  It also sautes, steams, cooks rice and makes yogurt! When the pressure cooking cycle is complete it automatically goes into “Keep Warm” cycle for up to 10 hours.  I have cooked dry beans in 30 minutes with no pre-soak, made fall-off-the-bone BBQ Ribs in less than 25 minutes and Pork Chops with Cabbage in 12 minutes.  My favorite has been Chicken and Dumplings… yummy!

One thing you have to keep in mind about the Instant Pot is that the cooking times do not include the time it takes it to get to pressure or the time that it takes for the pressure to release if you don’t do a quick release.  I usually use the saute function to heat up the pot in order to cut down on the time it takes the Instant Pot to come to pressure.

One little problem I had when I first got the Instant Pot was how to remove the Anti-Block Shield from the lid for cleaning.  The instructions that came with it were not very clear, and the shield pictured did not look at all like the one on my lid.  I went to the forums at the Instant Pot web site for help.  From the forums I discovered that a lot of people were having the same problem.  After I figured out how to remove the shield, I made a short video to try and help others who were having the same problem.  Here is a link to that video: https://youtu.be/CsfdCAtU1oE

If you’re interested in trying an Instant Pot, I bought mine on Amazon.

Here is a link to the model that I have.

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https://youtu.be/wHmLR9hPfa0

When I first announced to the world that I was going to be grandmother, one of the first questions was “What is going to be your grandmother name?”  Hmmm…. I hadn’t considered what it should be.  There are a myriad of choices.  After careful consideration, I felt that I should first eliminate the names that were already in use by friends and family.  So that eliminated some really cute names: Grammie, Mimi, Gigi, Nannie…  Then, I thought, it should be fairly easy for Grandgirl to pronounce.

Dear Husband prefers to be called Grandpa, but although Grandma is a fine name, it just didn’t feel like me.  I began searching on the internet for inspiration.  There are several websites to help you find the perfect name.  Here are links to a few:

http://www.grandparents.com/family-and-relationships/grandparent-names/grandparent-names

http://www.thenewparentsguide.com/grandparents-nicknames.htm

http://www.namenerds.com/uucn/granny.html

For my boys, both of their grandmothers were called Nannie.  Not a problem originally because they lived in different towns and had not been together.  Then one day Nannie visited Nannie at her home.  Nannie was holding my oldest son in her arms as we said good-bye to Nannie.  Confusing, I know… It was to my son, also.  He looked back and forth from one to the other then renamed them Big Nannie (who was 5′ 10″ tall) and Little Nannie (who was 5′ 5″ tall). The names stuck and both were called by their new names from then on.

Then I had the inspired idea of creating a blog about my journey into Grandmotherhood, so I began trying to think of names to call this blog.  After thinking of and rejecting many names, I settled on The Nana Theory. So, I will be Nana.

Of course, as we all know, as Grandgirl grows and begins to talk, she may have another idea for what to call me. And, whatever it is, it will be perfect.