The Wellness Connection with Fiona Kane

Episode 90 Angela's Journey from Musician to Healer and End-of-Life Harpist

• Fiona Kane • Season 1 • Episode 90

Share episode

Send us a text

In this episode Angela Sciberras joins us to recount her inspiring journey from a career in music to the world of therapeutic healing. Once a talented flautist, an injury led her to discover the transformative power of music therapy. Angela shares poignant stories, including playing for her grandmother in her final days, shedding light on how music extends beyond entertainment to offer comfort and healing from babies in the neonatal unit to those at the end of life. Angela highlights the profound impact music can have in palliative care, particularly the soothing tones of the harp.

Exploring the ancient musical modes and their therapeutic applications has allowed Angela to provide solace to those in their final moments. From playing at life celebrations to creating calming environments in palliative settings, Angela's passion for therapeutic music offers a unique perspective on the healing power of sound.

The essence of personalised support in end-of-life care is about understanding the complex emotions involved; and being adept at tuning into non-verbal cues. Through heartfelt anecdotes, we explore how music therapy can transform grief into uplifting experiences, breaking down the barriers of fear and sadness. Angela's story exemplifies how music can facilitate profound connections and offer solace in life's final stages.

Contact details for Angela Sciberras:

An Expert in Healing, Transformation, and Holistic Wellness. With two decades of expertise, Angela Sciberras is a powerhouse in the field of Kinesiology, Neuro-Training, and Resolve Beyond Neurology.

Website: https://www.thekineziologist.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheKineziologist

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thekineziologist/

Learn more about booking a nutrition consultation with Fiona: https://informedhealth.com.au/

Learn more about Fiona's speaking and media services: https://fionakane.com.au/

Sign up to receive our newsletter by clicking here.

Instagram

Facebook

LinkedIn

Credit for the music used in this podcast:

The Beat of Nature

Music by Olexy from Pixabay



Fiona Kane:

Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection Podcast. My name is Fiona Kane. Today I've got another guest and we're going to be talking about a therapeutic music application, and I'm sure our guest will tell us exactly what that is. So today we have Angela Skibberis. Hi, angela.

Angela Sciberras:

Hi Fiona, Thank you so much for having me on. This is absolutely fantastic.

Fiona Kane:

So tell us a little bit about you, a bit of your background, and why am I talking to you about this topic today?

Angela Sciberras:

Absolutely. Thanks again. Lovely to be here, lovely to be welcomed, and can't wait to chat with you about things that I'm very passionate about. So my day job you see me like Superman and Clark Kent my day job, my Clark Kent is kinesiology. So I've been working as a kinesiologist for just on 20 years. I started in neurolinguistic kinesiology, then went in and learned neurotraining a whole completely, you know, based in kinesiology practice, but also you know, other areas and other focuses in the nervous system, and then went on to something called resolve, beyond neurology. So 20 years of experience, thousands of clients and client session times that's. That's been my passion in life, or one of my big passions is working with people in that way.

Angela Sciberras:

But my former life, before coming to kinesiology, was a musician. So I did a music degree. I have a bachelor's degree in music and I was a solo flautist. Actually had my own, you know, own random dreams of becoming the next Jane Rutto, except not make it on a piano. You know her own random dreams of becoming the next Jane Rutto, except not make it on a piano. Uh, yeah, so I loved flute and played in SBS orchestra for a period. Um, on and off, played in lots of ensembles and things like that, and it was actually an injury due to playing. That brought me to kinesiology itself, which which is interesting, yeah, so mostly that's what I do in life is just really passionate about helping people love the arts, spend a lot of time in creative fields, and music in particular, which has led me to what we're going to talk about today.

Fiona Kane:

Okay, yeah, that is an interesting background. So I didn't know that you played the flute, I didn't know those things. So there you go.

Angela Sciberras:

Yeah, well, flute was before I had an RSI injury in my second year at uni. Flute was like an extension of my body and I think when I had that injury it was almost like a dying, coming to the point where I realised that I couldn't play to the intense capacity that I was playing at the time with, you know, just as you could imagine at university and playing to the level that we were practising, doing all sorts of certifications and things like that. It was a lot of pressure on the body and stress on the body and I think too, in those days we're talking, you know, sort of more than 20 years ago there wasn't a lot of understanding of how to practice effectively without injuring yourself. I think nowadays it's a lot better. We've got so much more understanding and knowledge about how to you know how to actually practice without over-practicing, without injuring our muscles and tendons and things like that.

Fiona Kane:

Yeah yeah, so that's what I was going to ask Is it like a shoulder or a neck sort of arm thing?

Angela Sciberras:

Yeah, well, for me it was actually that position, you know, imagine you're holding that position. It was actually a wrist thing and I think the combination of playing a lot of hours a day, sometimes six or seven hours a day in ensembles and practice work, personal practice work, but also it's the combination of practising and stress, so there was often a lot of pressure to be, you know, practising pieces that were extremely difficult. And to this day, interestingly, when I pick up the flute and I play particular pieces, whether it be Telemann or certain, you know, extremely complex pieces from, you know, the 19th century or classical pieces, it's like my body has a memory and I'll start to have a little bit of aching in my wrist again, like the body's thinking oh no, not this stuff again, but I can pick up folk, I can pick up jazz, improvisation and play for countless hours and not have any pain. So it's really interesting that you know, I must have a balance about that. Note to self, I need to have a balance about that as well, because it's something that the body the body actually, you know, keeps the score and it remembers that. It remembers that stress, um, you know, so moved from, yeah, less flute playing into a little bit more multicultural sort of um well, music type of ensembles, um, playing everything from korean music to um, javanese music to you name it, african at the time and a lot more percussion, moving away from flute a little bit just to give that, you know, help the body to actually heal.

Angela Sciberras:

Yes, and it was around that sort of tail end of university that I had an experience with my grandmother that started to have me think about music as a healing modality. So I think I'd always been a performer, addicted with the stage. I still love speaking and performing and things like that, but it was my whole world was getting up on stage as a soloist and performing and coming to sit with my grandmother as she died and playing music for her had me start to think there's something more to this. There's something more than it being something that's enjoyable and it is. There's something more to it than being entertaining and it is. There's something that's intrinsically and innately healing.

Angela Sciberras:

So, sitting with her and watching the way that her body went from being, you know, just a vegetable in the chair, not responding to, my father and I we were sort of playing some Irish jigs he played the guitar and I played the flute and for a moment you could almost imagine that she wasn't dying, that she, you know, it's like, you know, like a marionette or a puppet, and the music began to take over her body Obviously, she was part Irish, so we're playing these and it was like forgive my goodness, it's like a second wind, or where is this energy coming from? Where is this ability to get up and almost dance energy coming from? Where is this ability to to get up and almost dance? Um, and both my father and I were just blown away by how the music actually animated her and almost gave her back to us for a period of time. Yes, she did go downhill much quicker after that and passed away, you know, only a few days after that, but we never thought we'd have that type of interaction with her again. Yes, and I think that's what I became fascinated with the power that music could have to actually be able to, you know, give people an opportunity to reconnect with their loved ones in a way that they may not be able to.

Fiona Kane:

So it's quite extraordinary. We played music for my mother, not as in played the instruments, but just had a microphone and played music and my mother she was quite heavily medicated so I didn't get any response from it. It wasn't really about that, but I feel like it would have been quite soothing for her and her familiar music and it was actually probably soothing for all of us.

Fiona Kane:

So we were kind of playing. It was like all these lovely sort of 70s Bee Gees and ABBA and songs like that that we used to love and that we sort of grew up with. So we just played that sort of music for her and I like to think that that would have been helpful for her, even though she wasn't able to say so it would have been.

Angela Sciberras:

It would have been, and we learn um. Once I went into learning a clinical application of music, so then becoming more interested in. Well, how can we apply music in such a way? That's more intentional, um, but also quite intuitive in that connection with a person, particularly when they can't like your mother, she couldn't tell you whether she was enjoying it, but you know, we learn other ways of being able to tell whether someone is still stressed, whether they're upset, whether it could be the colour of their skin, a grimace on their face, the way that they're holding their fists, whether they're holding the sheets really tightly, all of these things, the rise and fall of the chest, you know, if they're on, often in palliative situations, they're not. But if you're in an ICU or with neonates which I've spent some time with neonates you've got all of the machinery which help you to see blood oxygen levels or their heart rate, and so you can literally watch as you play to see, ah, their oxygen levels improving. Ah, yes, their heart rate is think about that.

Angela Sciberras:

Wow, okay, yeah, so yeah, that's right, we can circle back around to a little bit more about that in a moment, um, but yeah, so after that experience with my grandmother I became fascinated and I started to look around sort of Australia, around certifications or training that one could do to learn more about how to apply music in that way. And at that time we were sort of still looking at music. Therapy was, you know, and still is, a very respected and highly effective degree that people can do here in Australia. And I went to the Golden State, which is in Penrith, at that time and they've still got wonderful training there for people who wish to become music therapists. But their focus I'm not sure whether it still is, but at that time their focus was very much on music for people with disability, children often, or those kind of applications where you can make a little difference to people like that.

Angela Sciberras:

But I surprised myself that I really wanted to go down the path of palliative. I was passionate about the effect that it could have in the moments for people who were dying and it just didn't light me up to as much as don't get me wrong, it's amazing work that people do with children with disabilities or all sorts of brain injuries. It's amazing, but that just wasn't where I felt my fascination. Um, around that deathbed, sitting at the deathbed, and there was nothing really at that time in australia that would address that type of training.

Angela Sciberras:

Um, so, just by sir, it was sometimes, I think, secret synchronicity, the power of synchronicity I connected. Connected with a lady who wanted to learn flute. I'd actually put a sign up in the local shopping centre to say that I was teaching flute. She came for a flute lesson and just so happened that she was the first person in Australia to be doing an online. Now, back in the day, people thought it was, you know, so unprofessional, can you believe? You know, we're talking back in 2005,. So unprofessional. And Mickey Mouse and to do a course online.

Fiona Kane:

Yes, yeah, in those days, wasn't it Exactly?

Angela Sciberras:

It was very new and my late mentor, stella Benson I'll show you this is her book actually the Healing Musician for anyone. I think you can see that there for anyone who's interested in learning more about it, she's. She has a wonderful book about her work. So she had created she was a bedside musician and she'd created something called the International Healing Musicians Program and she ran online programs. Yes, it was online, but it's early days online, so not like we could do something like this with Zoom, which is extraordinary. It was all. Yes, there was the emailing and there was an online site where you could do, you know, the assignments and things like that, but it was all via phone basically, so everyone would connect up to a conference call and, you know, we could do the certification. So this beautiful woman named Julie Webb actually I have to credit her because she came in to learn flute, but literally I recognise that she was a harpist number one and number two she was the first person in Australia to be completing what was called the International Healing Musicians Program. And, oh my goodness, like you can't make that up, when someone comes to your house for a music lesson and literally they're doing the course that I was seeking and that focus really was on deathbed palliative care. So that's where coming into the certification all started.

Angela Sciberras:

It's amazing, from there, speaking with Stella Benson, who unfortunately has passed away in the last few years, we made a deal. So at the time I couldn't afford to do her course, but we made a deal. I said I actually part of my university degree was event management and I said I'm a very effective event manager. Let me curate an event here in Australia, a symposium of sorts, and we'll bring you out to run workshops with musicians. I'll do all of the work. If you will train, put me through the training. I'll bring you out here. We'll expect like we'll sell tickets for these things, we'll get all your expenses paid and we'll do where was she based?

Fiona Kane:

she was in the us. Oh okay, I didn't. I must have missed that when you said that, so I may not have even said it, so apologies if I didn't.

Angela Sciberras:

So she was in the us. Yes, um, she was based in america and obviously in america there's um. Well then, and more so now even, there's a very rich base of therapeutic music application, certainly different to a music therapist, but lots of harpists. Their hospitals actually have harpists and they sometimes have huge full-size gold harps in cardiac wards. They're paid really well to do their jobs. You know, sometimes there's two gold harps in surgery. Well, you know, they're applying it. There's degrees called music thanatology, which is the study of death and dying in music, and they work with universities and hospitals that integrate them clinically into the fabric of the hospital system. Yes.

Angela Sciberras:

And unfortunately Australia hasn't quite caught, still hasn't quite caught up with that, although we're doing better and better, but at that stage it was brand new. Here that way of working hasn't quite caught up with that, although we're doing better and better, but at that stage it was brand new. Here that way of working one-on-one, very specific one-on-one type of work with people and truly starting to understand a lot of the old and even ancient ways of working with music, where we can use tone, texture, different modes, maybe ancient modes, understanding how the modes affect the human body and then being able to intuitively acquire them at the bedside for the good of the person at the time.

Fiona Kane:

So what does different modes mean? Okay, so different modes.

Angela Sciberras:

So modes are like keys. So if you imagine those of you out there who aren't musicians, a lot of musicians who are listening would know what a mode is. They're like simplistic versions of a scale and you would remember you might have seen a musician play a scale where they play C to C, da-da-da-da-da-da, like this type of thing. So a mode is almost a shortened version of a scale and these modes can go right back to 11th century. You know very old history of very old english modes or gregorian modes and understanding how these different modes or sounds affect the body. So major modes what in the West we would call like happy sounds, you know, or minor modes, where the miners, they sound a little bit sad are the minor modes.

Angela Sciberras:

So we would look at modes like merry, merry modes. You know, if I came into a room and you know you could be a couple of little old ladies having a cup of tea and they just needed a lift, like they might not be necessarily in pain or unwell but they might be a bit down that day. So you might come and sit with them while they have their cup of tea and play some merriment modes, which the way that the Western ear. Obviously that's different for other cultures because they hear they're going to hear different things, different things in different modes. But for us in the west when we hear a minor mode it's often like sad songs and things like that merry modes, they're the uplifting um, things like that. So we would start to understand the different types of modes, the different keys and different sounds that affect the body. You know, I know I feel really uplifted when I listen to this particular song and that's often got a lot to do with the key or the mode that that song is in.

Fiona Kane:

It's funny because I'm a really big music fan and anyone who watches or listens to this podcast will know that I drone on about music at different times and the latest music I like or the lyrics I love or whatever. But music really does affect my soul. It's funny. I've sort of had this vague awareness of music therapy in the background of my brain, but I've kind of never really stopped and thought about exactly how that is. But it makes sense to me, based on how I feel and how I can feel joy from music, or I can feel calm from music, or I can be crying. I put a song on and I, whatever it is. Yes, that does make sense to me, but it's kind of like I just never really just stopped and thought about it as much as I have at this moment, I suppose yeah.

Fiona Kane:

I've had the time to think about it, but now you're beginning to explain it, so it's like that makes sense.

Angela Sciberras:

That makes sense, that's right, and we've got these skills. You know musicians, back in the day they would have been used, particularly if you look at this picture here on Stella's book, you can see, hopefully without any shine there. You see it's a very old piece of artwork. You can see the gentleman here obviously is not looking very well. I don't know if that's an angel it here, obviously it's not looking very well. I don't know if that's an angel, it could be. And then here of course we've got the harpist, and so you know, the lyre players or the harpists would have been brought in to relax or to uplift or heal.

Angela Sciberras:

I think ancient cultures have a lot more understanding of, you know, the power of vibration to heal, to heal. And so because the harp, it has a very specific tonality and vibration that actually very much mimics, almost like the vibration of the human body. It's very close. I think cello is also very close, but harp in particular. You would know, whenever you see a harp, people experience a harp, they immediately are drawn to them. I don't know whether it's all the old mythology around the harps and angels and things like that. Imagine me walking into a palliative care ward and my name tag says Angela and I've got a harp, and you know so people have a lot of very healing connotations with harp in particular, have a lot of very healing connotations with harp in particular.

Angela Sciberras:

But that's not to say that you can't use other instruments to do this work, although when I first came to the work, obviously, as I said, I was a flautist, you know, not just to tip my horn, but I was very good at what I did. But I realised in the very first sort of experience of going into a palliative care ward to play for people in palliative care wards with the flute, it was not the right instrument. It was not the right instrument for that environment, for bedside environment. So we've all had those experiences where I don't know, say, you've got a headache, or you know you're not feeling very well and there's a sound in your environment that's irritating.

Angela Sciberras:

We've all had that. You know, if your child's in trying to practice their violin and you think, oh my God, you know. So when you're sick, if you've got a brain tumour, if you're in pain, the flute is not it, it's just it's not it. And the range that you have with flute normally moves up the range into sort of higher, higher pitch type. That's where it starts to sing and be beautiful, but in those types of environments it's a little too much.

Fiona Kane:

Yeah, it's a bit too invasive sound. Is that the right word?

Angela Sciberras:

yeah, yeah, it's like it can be for ill people. It can be irritating the pitch can be piercing um maybe some.

Angela Sciberras:

I did take native american plutes in one time and they've got a beautiful top. You know that timbre, that low, woody sort of a sound, much more relaxing, a lot better. Um. But I very quickly realized that I had no range of movement with flute in a palliative care ward. Um. So, lucky me, my friend julie had two harps. She had two tiny harps. At the time I'd never played harp before. But she said why don't you line my harp? And you know, see what, see what happens. I thought, well, I've been a professional musician most of my life. Obviously I knew how to read music, do whatever. So I sat down and literally taught myself how to play the harp.

Fiona Kane:

That's what I did last weekend. You do?

Angela Sciberras:

And I say to everyone out there I'm not here to say that I'm an extraordinary concert harpist not at all but certainly I'm a very effective therapeutic harvest and you don't have to be anyone who's sitting there thinking to themselves. I've always wanted to play the harp. You can certainly buy small harps that are very effective, very beautiful sounding, for those types of environments um could even be an aged care facility, or it could be neonates that you like, or it could be any type of environment that you're wanting to affect change. You can certainly learn the harp 100%. They're very forgiving. I literally went in. I think maybe it might have taken me two months to get to the point where I thought, okay, I'm ready to go in with my harp now. And I think I had one piece and it was really I think it was called Richard the Lionheart very old 12th century English piece, simple, and I think I might have used one finger.

Angela Sciberras:

You know that's how early days it was and I went in and sat with this little old lady named Joy and she cried, for at first I didn't know whether she was crying because it was that bad or whether it was that good, but no she, she had tears coming down her face she could run from the room like she could say.

Angela Sciberras:

so I'm thinking is it that good, is that bad? But no, she. She cried through the whole thing and just experienced like the most amazing thing, and I thought this is just incredible, almost like a harp would say just put your hands on me and let me do the work. Let me do the work, and had a beautiful experience with her over you know maybe four or five different meetings, going in and sitting with her up until when she passed away, and it was hilarious. I came in I think it was the last time I saw her. I walked in the room and her son nearly fell off his chair because she'd been telling him about the angel named Angela that was coming in with a harp and he thought when does anyone ever?

Fiona Kane:

no one ever, you know you don't see harps like he thought that she was seeing things or something.

Angela Sciberras:

He thought that the morphine was was um. So when I walked in the actual room he couldn't believe. He said I thought she was, uh, I thought she was going crazy, but no, I was a real harpist coming in so did he actually make some of his mother's good drugs or something that was hilarious he?

Angela Sciberras:

literally really fell off his seat. So funny, um, of course. Then she passed away and that then started this whole other area of being invited to funerals and ceremonies and vigils. So joy's family rang and said joy absolutely adored you and it literally transformed her journey of transitioning to the other side and we'd love it if you'd come and play for her funeral. And so since then, you know I've been doing this since 2006, 2005, 2006, I can't just countless funerals, life celebrations, vigils. I've been invited into hospitals after the fact, after the person has passed away, to come and sit with the family in vigil around the person that's passed. And so there is this real opportunity.

Angela Sciberras:

As much as it can seem like, my goodness, a lot of your work is very dark, even in kinesiology I tend to. It's not necessarily my focus, but I tend to be quite good at working with trauma, like it's. One of my specialties is working with trauma and a lot of the you know the darkness that we all have within us, that we want to be able to heal or move through. I seem to have just a way of being in dark moments and be quite fine with it very sad moments, very upsetting moments, very challenging moments, and I feel like I'm the best version of myself in those moments, which is wonderful.

Fiona Kane:

Yeah, that's really good, because some people would say like I can hear the questions, because I know that a lot of people, especially in the Western world, I feel like in the Western world we are very it's very clinical and we're very separated from death. We kind of keep it at arm's length and we don't really like to talk about it or think about it. And we, yeah, we really don't. And so I feel like sometimes people think that would think oh, going into situations like that, is that really depressing, or you know, does it sort of bring you down or make you feel depressed, or, you know, is it awful, you know, and that would be a question that a lot of people would ask. So what is your response to that?

Angela Sciberras:

Oh, my goodness, I feel like I'm more alive when I'm sitting with people, particularly when they come into those periods where they're actively dying, although I've spent lots of time with people as they're in the progression of being quite cognitive and being able to talk with me about how they're feeling and all those types of things. So I've always felt like, as I walk into an environment with a dying person, that it's like this field that's buzzing with life because that person is so aware of their mortality that it's like there's this crackle in the room. And I found when I was doing sometimes I've spent a lot of my work in um calvary health care in clogger, out of clogger, because they've got a fabulous, absolutely fabulous uh, palliative, um palliative care sort of program there and their second floor is all palliative. So I'm not sure how many beds were there, but I'm sure maybe, like maybe 40 or 50 to 100, I'm not sure a lot of palliative beds in that hospital. So whenever I would go up to the second floor, pretty well everyone on that floor was um at different stages of their, of their journey, and I I would find that there would be this anticipation, you know, as you would come onto the wards I would often sit for maybe half an hour at the nurse's station and my postman's just there.

Angela Sciberras:

If you can hear some noises just calling out, that's okay. Apologies for that. Yeah, so I would come and sit at the nervous state nurse's station about half an hour and try and just downgrade and just settle into the instrument, because I'd be, you know, in traffic for at least an hour. And the harp is the type of instrument where the one instrument I've played and I've played many instruments over time where it says you know what don't think you can go from from chaos thinking, from busyness, from tension and stress, to playing me effectively it just. It's like it says okay, you need to just sit with me for a minute and you need to meet me where I'm at and it's not wherever you've been in the traffic. So I'd have to come and sit down and just play and feel what you know cortisol levels come down and you just relax into the instrument and then allow it. And of course the nurses and everyone else would be like, oh, the whole environment starts to do it because they're stressed as well.

Angela Sciberras:

Yeah, yeah and then I'd say to myself, okay, um, let's see where we go, and I just pick the harper. Sometimes I'd start to walk down the hall and a nurse, would you know. They started to get to know how I worked, they got to know how who needed the help, where, where I could help them, and I'd get ahoy. Or I might see a family member and say, oh, could you come in here? Or you'd sort of just get guided and then sit with the person, play, and usually the playing might be anywhere from 15, 20 minutes to an hour, depending on what was going on in the room and then I would just put it down and that person would just unload and talk or cry or get really angry, but often they would just want to talk about their lives.

Angela Sciberras:

I was this almost like an invisible person who had no agenda. I'd walk in and play. I didn't even have to because I was an intuitive player. I didn't come in and go. What music do you want? I didn't have to think what they wanted. You have to, you know, consider whether they want this song or that song. I'd just sit with them, go, just relax, and I would watch their body, do what we have to do, finish, and then they would usually just talk about all the things that they feel they couldn't say to their family, yes, or their friends, because even the dying person doesn't want to upset everyone by saying I'm afraid to die yeah I'm actually happy to die, I'm looking forward to dying.

Angela Sciberras:

There's no way they could say that, maybe, to their family members, because then they'd say why would you say that we don't want happy to die, I'm looking forward to dying? There's no way they could say that, maybe, to their family members, because then they'd say why would you say that we don't want you to die? So I think it was this privileged I felt. Privileged is how I felt with dying people. I never felt that it was weird or dark or uncomfortable. Maybe sometimes there might have been slight discomfort, depending on the reaction that a client might have. There might have been slight discomfort depending on the reaction that a client might have.

Angela Sciberras:

But mostly it was just a privilege to be in this crucible of rebirth. Yeah. Like a midwife.

Fiona Kane:

Yeah, yeah, I understand what you're saying. I haven't done nearly as much time as you in those environments, but when mum was in palliative I when mum was in palliative care. She was in palliative care for I think it was about 23 days and I was there almost every one of those days and I stayed a couple nights as well, and I what I? I know what you're saying about the energy. There is something about the energy in palliative care and it's not all bad or anything, it's not and it's.

Fiona Kane:

It's actually quite something I've said before. That kind of might sound rather strange, but I feel almost like I I birthed my mother into death yes sort of thing like so that felt like this profound experience where I helped her pass.

Fiona Kane:

Yes, um so, and she birthed me into life and I birthed her into death. That's kind of how I describe it and it kind of doesn't make sense, but it sort of does make sense and it feels like a very there's all the other emotions and things like that, but at the time it just feels like a very profound shift. That happens. But yeah, it's hard, yeah, it's really really hard for me to describe it. But what you're saying, you understand, I do.

Angela Sciberras:

And what a gift that you gave your mother, a profound gift. Yeah, and.

Angela Sciberras:

I think if I could do anything on this planet, you know, it would be that there's something so beautiful about helping, helping someone to move you through that transition, and I guess everybody's different in how that they want to do it.

Angela Sciberras:

Um, and it all depends, I think, sometimes on where they're at in. You know their pain levels, um, how, how much they've dealt with. You know, sometimes if people have got a lot of bitterness or, um, or they're angry or they're they're not coping with the reality of how it is it. Can you know, I've noticed over time that their passing can be more challenging, more painful, um, but then I've seen other people who literally, you know, kind of you know normal meetings with them sit down, play, and then we'd get to two days or 24 hours before their passing and we'd walk in the room and it was like luminous and like it sounds a little bit fluffy or almost spiritual, but it's like they're like light coming through their eyes if they're blue-eyed, it was like, oh, bright, they had lots of energy, they were really positive and it's like this sort of, you know, flipping in and out of two realities. It's just absolutely extraordinary starting to see other people in the room.

Fiona Kane:

Yeah, that's the thing, like I don't know. Obviously people have different beliefs around these things and all the rest of it, and I respect that. People have whatever is right for them. But in the way I would describe it personally, the way I perceive it is, yes, that they are, in that you see that when they've got one foot on either side, basically yes, and there's something about that you just see different signs and things that kind of make you go, wow, you kind of do know there is something on the others, whatever it is, but you can sort of see when people do have kind of make you go, oh, wow, you kind of do know there is something on the others, whatever it is, but you can sort of see when people do have kind of one foot already. And.

Fiona Kane:

I don't mean it in a nasty way. Sometimes it is like you see it, and it's actually a beautiful thing that you're witnessing where you see it?

Angela Sciberras:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think the beauty of being able to go in as a harpist number one and as a harpist number one and as a musician but just as a human being, like often, I would just enjoy walking in that room as a human being and sitting with someone playing. You know, our particular art is the art of learning specifically one-on-one. So as much as we, you know, there were times where I'd be invited to come into a lounge room on the palliative care ward and there'd be a dozen people sitting around having cups of tea or hand massages. I really have to give a lot of credit to Anne-Marie Trainor, who was the I'm not sure if she still is, she may still be the head of the volunteer department at Cogra at that time. She ran an extremely effective and strong volunteer palliative environment there. So there were people who would come and do hair massages with essential oils. There were hairdressers who would come around and do hair. There were people who would come and do facials or whatever. There were storytellers. There were people who retired journalists or, you know, people who had written books and authors and things like that would come in and help the dying people to write their story to present to their family. At the end, they would come and sit with them and talk with them and make notes or record their stories and then present their families with this beautiful my Life book. Incredibly creative ways of working with people to help them, you know, journey through their transition of passing, and the way we, as therapeutic musicians, are trained to work is to come in and meet you where you're at and have no expectations of you. There's no agenda in terms of I'm going to walk in and go right, these are my plans for you in the session today and these are what the things that I want to achieve, which, yeah, I'm not saying that's bad, and sometimes with music therapy there can be more of a okay. So we've got sort of you know, there's plans and there's, you know, integrating. I've got certain types of goals that I'd like to be able to make with this person. Um, that could be functionality, wise, whatever, but our goal is just to walk in and meet the person where they're at, in their environment, and for me personally, that meant learning. Any pieces that I played at the bedside were maybe ancient ones, or I'd have to learn them by heart, understand your modes really well so that you had them at your fingertips so you could move in and out of them.

Angela Sciberras:

While you focused on the person nine times out of ten in the palliative ward, as you would have experienced, they can't really communicate. They're at the point where they may not be able to communicate. So our, our whole work would be to sit and connect with the person. So watch their breathing, watch the colour, as I was saying before, what are their hands doing? What is their heart rate. If you can measure it, all of those things help us to see.

Angela Sciberras:

You know, you might be in this mode, that mode flipping around a little bit, and then you notice, when you come into something, the person, their hands unfurl and one little tear might come down. Particularly people with motor neurons and things like that. They can't even move and you see this one little tear come down. You think okay, and then you're having that ability to lean into um, lean into whatever that is. So it may be the person starts sobbing. Some people might think that's actually not helpful, but from my experience, that person deeply needed to sob, yeah, and you would get a sense of is this sobbing? That's painful. So do we need to shift it and lighten things up a little bit, or do we lean into this?

Angela Sciberras:

and allow them to crack open and just allow that cathartic experience to happen.

Fiona Kane:

Yeah, so you've got to have a sense which it was and which way to go with it.

Angela Sciberras:

Just watch the person you want to be. I would never want to take my eyes off the person and just be playing, and you know you get this sense of like. Okay, we're in a rhythm here and we would often use things like entrainment. So the specific skills that they're taught as therapeutic musicians, one being entrainment, and a good example of an entrainment experience that I had which was absolutely extraordinary. It was a woman in her 40s who was dying of cancer and I was playing for someone else at the time. Anyway, a nurse came in and said oh, you know, a family's requested that you come down. We've done everything for this lady. She's been passing for days and days, and days and days and hanging, you know, hanging on and hanging on. I don't know if you've ever known those people who are like they should have been gone by now. They've had, they've had enough morphine to you know. They can't understand why they're still hanging on. And, of course, the question is are they waiting?

Angela Sciberras:

for someone? Is there something that they need to understand why they're still hanging on? And, of course, the question is are they waiting for someone? Is there something that they need to complete before they're ready? Like all the normal questions?

Fiona Kane:

And a lot of especially mothers, I think, would be hanging on. If they've got children Exactly In her 40s, her children, if she had them, would have been relatively young, I suppose. So it's that as well, I think, if they've got people that they feel like they need to stay there for, or if people want them to stay. Yes exactly They've got family there.

Fiona Kane:

A friend of mine gave me this example. Well, Linda Campbell, we did an episode on grief and death and I think she told a story I think of, maybe I won't. I can't remember what story she told, so I won't go into the full detail, but put it this way one relative saying to the other relative don't go, don't go, don't go. Yes.

Angela Sciberras:

And so if you've got that going on, it also would make it very hard to go Absolutely, and I can't tell you how many people would come and say to me you know what it's so strange. I walked out of the room to make a cup of tea and they went. I went to the bathroom and they went. I've been sitting here for days and days and days, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I wouldn't leave them because I don't want them to be alone when they go.

Fiona Kane:

Yeah.

Angela Sciberras:

And the minute I stepped out to ask for something, it's like I think that connection sometimes is so strong that they don't want to go while you're there and they can't.

Fiona Kane:

Yeah, I've had care nurses say that to me as well. And so we sort of had one point where we like we would leave the room regularly and give mum a break from us as well. Yeah, but, also a chance of like okay, she needs to be without us, that's right, but then we would go back in as well. But we also kind of just we told her that it was okay to go, Like we actually just said I can go.

Angela Sciberras:

I think that's important. And I had that exact same experience with my own father, I think he resisted and resisted and resisted and in the end I had to have a conversation with him and say you know what, dad, it's okay, like it's okay to go, and I know you're probably I thought he's probably worried about this and this and this and this and the planes and the, this and the. We've got it, I'll sort it, we'll sort it, yeah. Yeah, it's going to be okay.

Fiona Kane:

I came in with mum, I had to just tell her those things that I probably worried about my sister and my brother and this and that and whatever. And she was worried about me and so I was like you know is you know, I just told her all the things that I you would normally tell someone who was worried about the situation. This is sort of that sort of. This is sort of that sort of you can go when you're ready, it's all right, it's. You can just let all that go now, it's all sorted.

Fiona Kane:

And it's like you know, I my, my aunt and my um grandma had already passed, so I just kept telling her that you know she can go to them when she's ready, that sort of thing. But yeah, sometimes she just needed to be told look, it's all, okay, you can put it down, it's all, okay, I'm going to sort those things.

Angela Sciberras:

And you're probably thinking, oh my goodness, what's going to happen with that and what's going to happen with this? And you know a very short side story when my dad passed away, which I I find absolutely hilarious and I'm sure he would too. So he hung on and hung on, and hung on. I had that conversation with him and then I just remember turning away from the bed to look, because he was in Orange Base Hospital, to look out at the. You know, they had a nice view, actually quite a nice view. Look out the window.

Angela Sciberras:

And 30 seconds as I walked I looked away, looked back. 30 seconds as I walked, I looked away, looked back and a nurse was coming in the um, in the room to put those really big adult size nappies on. You know, because, you know, as we know, as we come to close to passing, you know, we lose our bodily functions and things like that. And my dad was old school and he certainly wouldn't be into wearing, uh, an adult size size nappy. And we had a really good, almost dark sense of humor at size where we could laugh at the. You know, laugh at them. And I turned and I said, well, dad, you better get going. They're about to put these, you know, big, big nappies on you. You better look out. And I literally I kid you not that he took his last breath.

Fiona Kane:

I think he totally agreed you better look out, they're coming in. I kid you not that he took his last breath. I think he totally agreed.

Angela Sciberras:

You better look out. They're coming in with these big nappies, and that was it.

Fiona Kane:

I'm out of here.

Angela Sciberras:

He's like you know what? You've convinced me, I'm done. So I still laugh about that and think the final thing that I said to my dad, you know, was you better look out. They're coming for you with those big pappies. You know, and some people might even find that offensive, but he and I had that was the relationship that we had, where we could have a dig and have a laugh, but ultimately, yes. So, coming back around to that 40-year-old lady, so I'm invited to come in and the room was filled and I'm talking maybe 20 people all standing around this woman's bed and people holding her hand each side and her husband on one side.

Fiona Kane:

And what if she was having trouble letting go?

Angela Sciberras:

then, Right, just surrounded, and everyone's saying look, you know she's suffering and she's been hanging on. She hasn't been able to communicate for days later and we're ready for her to go. And you know, we've done it. Everyone's come, everyone's here. There's nothing that we can think of. Is there any way that this, the music enough to relax her to go? And I said well, are you ready for her to go? They said yes. I said okay, because I'm not called the angel of death in here for no reason.

Angela Sciberras:

You know, I'd be walking around there because in the end often I'd come in and I'd play and people would pass and so, as much as you know, people would have a laugh at me and say was it that good or that bad?

Fiona Kane:

The grim reaper.

Angela Sciberras:

Right so you'd come in, and whether the music just helped to relax them to a point where they could finally let go. I don't know, um, but I said to him look, I, I do have a reputation, so if you're ready, then do you want me to explain what we're going to do? And they said yeah, and it was actually so fabulous because this whole room of people were almost upbeat about it. They were ready and just they're like you know what? We just want to support her, to have the best passing that she can have. So, okay, we're going to do this thing called entrainment, and what entrainment is is that we actually are going to. So she was in active dying, which I don't know if your mum did this, but often they become it's almost like this breathing that can become quite rattly, yeah, um, and quite disturbing for most. Most people find that really disturbing.

Fiona Kane:

It sounds really hard and it is. It's quite you if you feel quite stressed listening to it and the nurse is saying, oh no, no, it's fine, but it feels like it's really hard for them yeah, and it sounds like there's fluid in the lung or something and there you know all that kind of thing.

Angela Sciberras:

So you know, it's one of those things that I think. Of all the things that upset people, it's number one. Seeing someone suffer. That's not nice, yes, and for me obviously my own father that was harder than, obviously, just a person, a different person.

Angela Sciberras:

I didn't know. So we're going to do this important training, which means, basically, I'm going to match her breathing. So if her breathing for that, you know this kind of thing going on and it's repetitive, like a freight train just goes and goes, and goes and goes. So what we're going to do is I'm going to start playing and I'm going to match the rhythm of her breathing and it might take me might take me 10, 15 minutes to get into, like where musicians will know, some people might know when they're listening to a particular piece of music and they get into. It's like something that locks when you're, when you're truly in a um, like a momentum, or it's like this beautiful synergy of a rhythm. So in the zone into that.

Angela Sciberras:

Yeah, it's like in a zone, right. So we, we, we match, I'll match rhythm with her and then what we'll do over maybe a 15 minute period is I'm gonna really slowly drag back, I'm going to slow down ever so, like not even noticeably and without fail. People follow you. So you know you're playing like this and then you slowly, slowly, slow down to the point where you get down to maybe just ringing out one note. You know whatever that note, you know you play around a little bit and you find that there's one particular boom. You might hit on a d or something and just let it ring out and even slow that down to the point where it's completely arrhythmic.

Angela Sciberras:

And this woman went from freight train within you know, 20-30 minute period to literally, you know, into all this silence.

Angela Sciberras:

And you imagine, so often when you you break into that with the music and it's like people get really present, the silence is so loud, it's deafening, it's there's like this silence in the room. That's like it would happen to me, not every time, but every now and then you'd sit with someone and get them to that place where they were ready to pass and you'd be ringing out that one note and the silence was so loud and you can see everyone standing on the edge. So she'd be like and then it might be maybe 30 seconds between breaths and then it would go to maybe 40 seconds in between breaths and just letting that ring out again to the point where we're all standing there like holding our breath, thinking, is this it? Like watching like an on-the-edge-of-your-seat television series, and we thought it had been a good minute, a minute and a half, and everyone just breathed out and went oh, that's it, like it was just all this relief and but smiles right oh my god, that was incredible.

Angela Sciberras:

And then she goes right after everyone and then, of course, they broke out in hysterics. They broke out in hysterics, right, and they said that'd be right. She always had to have the last word. Apparently she had a habit of just when you think you know you got the, she would come in. The whole room is in just hysterics, laughing and holding each other and crying with laughter. And then, of course, that was her last breath and the joy in that room.

Angela Sciberras:

I'm'm not here to say that it was because of me, but collectively, what we created in that room was transforming that woman's final moments from one of extreme grief and sadness and pain, not to say that they won't also continue to go through their grief, but the feedback I would get from people after the fact, in cards or phone calls or at their funerals, was just like. That just changed my mother's transition into this magical moment that I'll never forget and that just happened over and over and over in all these different ways, whether it be sometimes people in hysterics and laughing, sometimes it was people crying, but it was. It was something where the tears would come in this wholesome like otherworldly way that helped people to free from the pain of the passing, more so, just feeling the emotion and the beauty, bringing the beauty, the beauty back to death, because actually death can be stunningly beautiful.

Fiona Kane:

Yeah, it's one of those things that is kind of beautiful and ugly at the same time. If you know what I mean, yes, I do know what you mean. The physicalness of it. Yes, and sometimes the physicalness can be not that very not nice, you know, but there's.

Angela Sciberras:

there's also a beauty and ethereal something, some other level beauty, something at the same time that's so well said and you know, I often think about when my grandmother did pass um. I wasn't there when she died, but obviously as soon as she did, you know, pass away, I made my way there and I said to my dad I want to go, I want to go see her. At the, I didn't have a viewing right. No one else wanted to have a viewing and I don't know why, but the um, maybe the, the funeral parlor, just didn't expect to have a viewing, so they didn't do the normal work that they would do to have someone presentable for viewing right now.

Angela Sciberras:

At that stage I had not seen a die. I mean, I was only in my 20s at that time, so I'd not seen a person die. I hadn't been introduced to death. Yes, I don't think I'd even seen someone interviewing at that stage. And my grandmother, my father's mother, was an angelic little old lady who I'm sure she fancied herself to be the queen. She just looked like you know, had that hair and wore that kind of cloth. She was just angelic and beautiful. And so I said, no, I've got to go see her, I've got to go say goodbye. So it was my first experience of seeing a person in death saying goodbye, goodbye. So it was my first experience of seeing a person dead in death and so we go to this funeral parlor and the gentleman said oh, just so, you know, mum's not looking very good, so prepare yourself for that.

Angela Sciberras:

How's that gonna be? Well, my only way to describe what I saw when I walked in that door and they opened that coffin was you know that painting, the Scream. You know the one with the person with their mouth open and they're on a pier or something. I think it's called the Scream, but I can't remember. I think it is yeah, and my grandmother? Because they didn't put her teeth in, they didn't close her mouth. Her eyes were open, yes, and it was all that. Death can the worst that death can look like, or not?

Angela Sciberras:

be worse, but what it can look like right yeah, it's quite confronting and I just remember being so traumatised by that so I just sobbed, not because she was dead but because I couldn't recognise her, yeah, and it just looked like a horror. It looked to me like a horror film and it was just horrible, a horrible experience, right, and the interesting thing about it was, I remember years later, after I'd been inspired to interestingly continue with palliative work, even after that experience, I thought I wanted to continue to do it and I was in my early, early days of training with that certification and we had to do quite a lot of clinical hours at the bedside to be certified. And I was invited to go into a room with a woman who had no family really common, no family, no loved ones. Um, she was alone and they said, oh, would you go sit with this woman? She's basically she's active, she could go any time. Would you like to go sit with her?

Angela Sciberras:

So I went in and the minute I walked in that door it was this woman. She was still alive, but she looked exactly like my grandmother looked that day. Exactly like my grandmother looked that day. And I remember just feeling, you know, all of the body just saying, oh, you're remembering that trauma and going through that and how confronting it is. Yes, it's really confronting, like the one thing about death is like how extraordinarily confronting it is. Yeah.

Angela Sciberras:

And to walk in and feel confronted and to sit down and just, I just remember, even asking my you know, it's like you know what, man, thank you for giving me the opportunity to have already. I've already seen this before and now I can. I can be here for this woman who's still here, in a way that I couldn't be for her at the time and just sat and played and I think I cried because I felt like I was releasing all of those associations with the ugliness of death, yes, the ugliness of death, and how fearful we are of death. We're terrified of a dying body to the point where I'd often, you know, I had a few experiences where I'd have my little harp and I'd jump into the lift to go up to the second floor and there could be staff that had not met me before. They might be coming in.

Angela Sciberras:

Just, you know, replacement staff or something didn't know who I was. They're like oh, where are you going? Oh, I'm going up to level two, and they'd say, but they're dying up there. I'd say they're currently living up there. So there was this undercurrent of why would you do that? They're dying, or they're not communicating anymore. So what's the point? Or, um, all of those things that would come with it. So I guess what the harp or the music would actually help to do is just to help to bring that palette of color, um, and beauty and dignity, yes, back to a human being, that, um, as much as we can physically be, you know, not looking our best, let's say that. Yes.

Angela Sciberras:

But there's certainly something very unconditional in being present to that and seeing the beauty beyond that, which is what I think any of the arts with palliative can do. Actually, the Irish do palliative care very well. They understand that you need the bard and the poet at the bedside.

Fiona Kane:

And actually I feel like in some ways it might sound a bit weird, but birth and death are similar in that way, in that I think birth can be quite ugly I've been present for two births can be quite ugly and also amazing and beautiful and life-changing. And all of these beautiful things at the same time.

Fiona Kane:

So I just think it's either end. At either end there's kind of this realness and potential ugliness to it, but there's also this other, this beauty or this um hard to put your finger on thing that is is bigger than any.

Fiona Kane:

It's as do you know that something is happening that's way bigger than you, that's way bigger than anything and that's way more powerful than anything like it's just that awareness, and I don't know if it's because at both ends you're also there's a like, there's a portal opening kind of thing, and at both ends so there's a connection with the other side or something. I don't know what it is, but there's something that feels quite momentous or quite big at either end of those experiences.

Angela Sciberras:

Absolutely, and I think, yeah, I think it's to me some of the best hours of my life have been sitting with people who are dying, um, and like just their bravery, and that I don't know. I suppose I've just always been that person that was never necessarily afraid to ask our hard questions because of, like, just my fascination, and so I'd sit with someone and say, why does it feel like to die? What? What do you think about? Or you know, like trying to put yourself in their shoes and understand, or you know they'd sit and tell you stories about their life or their regrets, like one of the things that they would regret. That's usually, that's never the things that we think we would regret, like it's a bit cliche, but it's like they're never regretting making more, you know, not making enough money, yes, or all those different things, um, this, there's usually a lot of regrets around. Gosh, I worry so much and why did I stress out so much about life and why did I.

Fiona Kane:

Why did I worry so much about things that didn't matter, that kind of thing that didn't.

Angela Sciberras:

Yeah, they really didn't matter. And um and so thing, yeah, they really didn't matter. And so I had just lots of teachers, so in that way where they tell you but obviously the music is also wonderful. We talked about neonates as well. I spent some time at Westmead in the neonate ward and that was fabulous because in Palliative Health you don't have a lot of the electrical assistance so you know heart rates or oxygen monitors and things like that, so you can see all sorts of deeper ways that the music is helping.

Angela Sciberras:

But, um, to come in and sit with you know little babies in the NICU who you know you sort of go, oh wow, like sitting and playing various pieces and noticing their blood oxygen levels increasing. You know, as we're sitting with them, some of the babies I had experiences where you probably know that some babies find it hard to suckle or to you know having trouble to suckle and things like that. Of course I'd come and sit and the nurse was like don't leave yet, because as soon as I'd stop playing they'd stop suckling. All these just beautiful experiences where you just realize like the music just helps to to calm people and center people. But I'm here to tell you it's not all rainbows and unicorns. At times, um, I have had people. You imagine, if you're on your death door, I don't, I mean not to this day I often ask myself what, how, how I be? Will I be angry, will I be bitter? Will I be scared? And a lot of people are probably all of those things and I have had.

Angela Sciberras:

I remember one experience I came into a four-bedded room and that's why we often really like to be able to, in most circumstances, try to have it be a one-on-one service because, as you can imagine, each and every person has different needs yeah they're in different moods, they're in different stages, they're in different pain levels, and someone who's feeling down I wouldn't want to necessarily come in and start playing a piece that's in a mode that sounds a little minor or a little bit sad or something like that. So, and vice versa, someone who's feeling really sometimes, someone who actually really needs a good cry, don't want to hear anything.

Angela Sciberras:

Mary, they're thinking this is just, you know, irritating yeah so I came into a four-bedded room which is not always ideal because then you've got other people in the space and this young man invited me to play for his mother, who hadn't been able to sleep from what he was in. Look, she has not slept for a week. She's just constantly groaning and sighing in pain and suffering, suffering on a spiritual level. There's like a spiritual suffering, yes. And so I said okay, let's come in and see what we can do. And he decided to sit at her feet and massage her feet, and I came and sat by her and we started to play, and it took us about half an hour that she started to go off to sleep and he's sitting at her feet going oh my.

Angela Sciberras:

God, you could see he was elated because, for the first time, drugs wouldn't help, this wouldn't help. But she was going off to sleep and we were both like, oh my God, this is fabulous. Anyhow, to our great dismay, diagonally there was an elderly woman and out of nowhere she said well, she didn't just say, she screamed you are torturing me, right. And you could feel the whole, because everyone else in the room were like, because there was families and people who were quite enjoying it, they were fine with it and because we're getting results with this lady.

Fiona Kane:

But whatever I was doing with this lady was Having the opposite effect on the other lady, was it? Was stirring something up now understandably.

Angela Sciberras:

It could have been stirring up her pain. It could have been stirring up her sadness, her fear. Yes, I don't know, but she was really, really angry and and I'm and then I'm experiencing feeling torn, thinking this woman's about to get results, but I don't. If I continue to stay here and do this, it's going to upset the whole room, yeah, so I just said okay, I understand, I'll be finished in a moment, and you know. And of course, she sat there with a red face and turning around everything, I just thought, oh, my goodness, like it was. It was. That was confronting and painful for me, because here I am, with my heart on my sleeve, sitting here playing harp for this woman, and this woman was livid about it. So there are days where that happens and, bit by bit, you come to the place where you can understand. You know what that's okay.

Fiona Kane:

The truth is that our health isn't always needed or wanted or the right thing at the right time, and it's just knowing that. That's just not always going to be everyone's cup of tea. That's exactly right. I'm just I'm really aware of time. Of course. It's so interesting. I've been wanting to keep this going because it's so interesting.

Angela Sciberras:

If we get some interest, we might be able to do a heartbeat sometime.

Fiona Kane:

Yeah, yeah, that would be really great. Look, look, one thing that I really appreciate about, uh, about palliative care, about end of life, is it is so real and it's a bad thing about it. But it's a good thing about it because usually by the time people get there, it's very real and so all the pretenses are gone. It doesn't matter, actually, whether you were a billionaire or whether you were famous, or whether you were the best looking person or whether, like it doesn't matter, none of that matters. It's kind of the great, great equalizer, isn't it?

Fiona Kane:

because once you get there once you get there it's just uh, it's largely real. And sometimes that means bad, as in that lady in some. Well, not bad necessarily, but just a not pleasant experience for you. And sometimes that means lots of beautiful conversations and insights and lots of beautiful experiences.

Angela Sciberras:

Oh, 99.999% of my experiences were extraordinary. And there were a few. There were a few. I had one lady who every time I hadn't even gone into her room, but every time I walked past she'd go there's that effing harpist again, oh my God. And I ended up having to have some talking to one of the bereavement ladies out there and say, oh my gosh, I don't know what to do about this lady. I don't even know her and what am I?

Angela Sciberras:

And I was taking it all personally because you know, because it's all about me, not the person dying in that room. And anyway, the lady said oh look, she has a brain tumour and it's just what she does. Yeah, so next time I'm in there and you come past. Anyway, she said some days she's sweet, no problem whatsoever.

Angela Sciberras:

Other days she's got something going on cognitively and it's it's not just you, it's the gardener, or it's like yeah, yeah it's funny how we you know it equalizes all of us, all of us in the room as well, because suddenly I'm here going. Oh, it's about me, isn't?

Fiona Kane:

it, oh my god get off yourself there's so much going on there that it's like that's the thing too. It's not about us anymore and it just all the other stuff that doesn't matter kind of fades away when you're in that and my mom made dogs and they had a therapy dog that used to go around the ward, I think, and I used to. They said, don't, don't take it into mom. And sometimes I took the door and she talked to them from the door. Oh, what sort of breed is that? What's it?

Angela Sciberras:

but she was happy with the thing at the door and she was happy with it moving on, it wasn't her cup of tea, you know Other people would love the dog, you know.

Angela Sciberras:

I had a lady like this is the thing that used to blow my mind. There was a woman who was a music therapist so a trained music therapist and she would come out a couple of days a week. She had an electric keyboard and she had this big bag full of shakers and little bangers and all sorts of whistles and fizzle and she would go in and she had I don't know four or five big, thick books of music from every decade so that she could walk in and sit down with someone say what's your favorite music, and she'd sit up there and play whatever they wanted pretty well, like karaoke a bit and I'd walk past the room and this woman would have a person who was, you know, on death's door shaking a shaker while she's singing the Beatles, and I'm like that was my definition of hell on earth. I couldn't think of anything worse, personally, right.

Angela Sciberras:

Although she had them. They were loving it they were enjoying it. They were loving it, right. And we often would meet in the hallways because I would always go in musicless. I didn't want to have the music get in the way of the connection Two totally different ways of working.

Angela Sciberras:

She had great results with how she worked, but I couldn't give it any worse. And then she often would say to me how do you walk in there without a stitch of music? That's terrifying. And so she would often say to me how do you do that? How isn't that? What are you doing in there? How does that work? So we all have our nuances and our ways of working, which would be great, yeah.

Fiona Kane:

And do you actually still do?

Angela Sciberras:

this work. Yes, so um not as regularly out in the bigger hospitals, but I I because I guess I've you know the word gets around um. I get a lot of private um calls now so I'll have people um call me. Sometimes I'll go down to a hospital in North Shore, sometimes Blacktown, sometimes it depends where people make the call to come.

Angela Sciberras:

Obviously there's people who know me family, friends, whatever I'll come and do that work and I'm hoping because I know Penrith is opening a brand new palliative unit next year I think it is sometime it's being built. We don't actually have, would you believe, a palliative specific unit unit in Canberra. I find that absolutely mind-boggling.

Fiona Kane:

But they're building one, I think, on this thing elsewhere. That's a suburb in the western Sydney. That's huge. It's so much a city really now it is a city and it is no palliative care there. That seems ridiculous.

Angela Sciberras:

So there's palliative, but it's not like they have a um, a dedicated, uh, dedicated unit or ward.

Angela Sciberras:

So they'll have wards that obviously have palliative people in them, but different to how the incredible wards up in konga where it was definitely palliative dedicated yes um, so they're building one in penrith and I've um put my throwing my hat over the over the wall to say, hey, this, this, this could be incredible for Penrith. Have me come in and do the work. Obviously, just for me going to the hospitals that really support the work to get out to Croghra we're talking a two-hour trip out there and a two-hour trip and it just gets too much when you're trying to run clinic and all the rest. So now I do a lot of one-on-one called in like that sort of thing. So now I do a lot of one-on-one called in like that sort of thing.

Angela Sciberras:

A lot of funerals, a lot of ceremonies. I'm brought in by places like Warrinora eastern suburbs to do a lot of their candle lighting ceremonies and things like that. Just, I guess you know, when you come onto that side of the industry where it's all about death and dying, that's where all your gigs come from. Yeah, so people say, gosh, all your gigs are pretty morbid. So people say, gosh, your gigs are pretty morbid. No, they're fabulous and they're an honour and they're beautiful.

Fiona Kane:

So if people want to get a hold of you, obviously I'll put your details in the show notes.

Angela Sciberras:

Yes.

Fiona Kane:

What's one or two examples you can give?

Angela Sciberras:

Yeah, so you can find me on Facebook as Angela Skibberis, my name, or the kinesiologist with a Z. So Instagram is the same, the kinesiologist with a Z.

Angela Sciberras:

So it's the same, the kinesiologist with a Z, the kinesiologist with a Z Skibras, angela Skibras.

Angela Sciberras:

It's S-C-I-B-E-R-R-A-S, but if you Google me, you'll find me.

Fiona Kane:

And I'll put all the details in the show notes as well. So if you can't remember any of this, just go to the show notes and the links will be there.

Angela Sciberras:

I just want to thank you again for today. It's just been like I've just been so interested I didn't want to stop. But we have to stop. I can go keep going, that's for sure. I think it was a real privilege and a pleasure.

Fiona Kane:

I just enjoyed it so much thank you, yeah, thanks, I just really appreciate. I just really appreciate interesting stories and just learning about things I don't know much about, and connecting and all of that. I love it. So thank you again, my pleasure and thank you for everybody who is listening or watching at home. Please remember to like, subscribe, share and rate this podcast so we can get more people to learn, learn all of these, just connect with other human beings and learn so much about life and death and all of the things in between. This is a podcast where we have real conversations about things that matter. So thank you everyone and I'll see you all again next week. Thanks, bye.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Fiona Kane

Host