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The low-pitched sounds of 9-year-old Michayla Baker playing the “Can Can” on her cello drew many patients and visitors from their rooms on Tower 5A last month. There, they could see the third grader, whose mother is undergoing chemotherapy, earnestly drawing her bow back and forth on the strings of an instrument nearly her size.
“This sort of music is what makes patients feel so good,” said Nursing Director Eileen Molina, MSN, RN. “It helps patients take their minds off of their illness and the struggles they are enduring.”
Patients on Tower 5A, a part of the Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center, are encouraged to try complementary therapies, such as music, journaling and reiki. For Michayla, performing for patients may be a coping mechanism.
“It’s a way of dealing with her mom’s diagnosis and taking some control over it by helping others,” said social worker Mary Lou Hackett, LICSW, who encouraged Michayla's mother to have her bring in the cello.
Angela Hills, who is battling acute leukemia, said she is proud of her daughter. “I think it’s wonderful she can do this,” she said, as she held open the book of music that Michayla studied as she played each song.
When Michayla first played in her mother’s room, other patients who heard the music began asking her to play for them. She took her handful of songs, including “Jingle Bells,” on a mini tour to the bedsides of patients who invited her in to play.
“I picked the cello because it sounds like a voice,” she explained. “It’s like it is speaking the words of the song.”
Michayla also has made an impression with her special “get well aliens,” which she draws and cuts out of construction paper. “I wanted to wish people good luck in the hospital,” she said, adding that the googly-eyed aliens are looking at patients from the walls she has taped them to and sending good wishes. “I think it’s worked for some people.”
Michayla Baker plays the cello, as her father Ken holds the music and her mom, younger brother and BWH staff listen.
Update: Michayla Baker has a new cello. The 9-year-old captivated the hearts of many Boston Globe readers last month after an article on the front page of the Sunday Globe reported on the ways she tries to lift the spirits of cancer patients. The article noted that the cello, propped against a wall, slipped and cracked, prompting readers to set up a Facebook page and collect donations. Michayla’s parents did not tell her of the readers’ intentions, and she was surprised and elated to receive a new cello in the mail.