Lions share: Club’s gift connects husband, wife
A long-married Kelowna couple separated by COVID-19 found a new and fulfilling way to connect Thursday.
Stan and Phyllis Nisbet used a Pocket Talker to have their first meaningful conversation in months at the Cottonwoods long-term care home.
“This little gizmo is fantastic,” said Stan, 89. “It’s made all the difference in the world. We could hear each other very clearly.”
Under COVID-19 protocols, Stan is only able to visit his wife, a resident of Cottonwoods for two years, once a week.
The 30-minute visits are conducted in Cottonwoods’ lobby, but husband and wife — who were married in 1953 in England — have to remain six feet apart and both must wear masks.
“Because of all that, it’s been really, really hard to hear and understand each other,” Nisbet said. “Mostly, we’ve just sort of looked at each other.”
But last week, Cottonwoods received a gift of Pocket Talkers from the Okanagan Mission Lions Club. The devices have microphones and headsets with built-in hearing aids, allowing people who are apart to have private conversations without distractions.
The club regularly hosts pancake breakfasts and bingos for Cottonwoods’ residents, but of course those activities can’t currently happen.
“We’ve really missed our connection with the older people at Cottonwoods, and we wanted to do something to help them out,” club secretary Bob Ayotte said. “We asked staff what we could do. They said, ‘Pocket Talkers’ right away, and we were happy to provide them.”
On Thursday, Stan and Phyllis, who has Alzheimer’s, used the devices for the first time.
“I asked her if there’s anything she needed, told her it’s Christmas coming up, and reminded her again the reason I haven’t been able to see her as often as before because of this virus beast,” Stan said. “It’s been a hard go this year, but it was so lovely to be able to talk to my wife again.”