Claire Cleveland


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For one Colorado trans woman, long-term care was her only option for housing — but getting in was an eight-month struggle

This is part of a series by Colorado Public Radio News about housing instability in Colorado. In October 2020, 68-year-old Lisa Oakley went to the emergency room at Memorial Hospital in Craig for elevated blood sugar and complications with her diabetes. In the past, she would get her levels under control and go home, but this time was different. She was struggling with bladder issues and needed a wheelchair instead of the walker she had been using. Her doctor recommended she go into a long-term

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Colorado Public Radio •

5 years into Colorado’s medical aid-in-dying programs, access is still an issue and researchers say educating doctors could help

Escobar met Ekdahl through the faith community, The Refuge, which she founded and worked as a pastor. Ekdahl had little money or resources, so throughout their friendship Escobar helped advocate for him to get better housing, access to better health care and navigate his complicated health situation. So when it came time, she attended the meetings Ekdahl had with the Denver Health medical aid-in-dying team and offered financial assistance for the program because he couldn’t afford the $800 cost
Colorado Public Radio •

‘I want something to be proud of’: On the road to recovery, he reconnected with his family and now aims for more

Bontrager joined the program after being arrested for breaking and entering in Fort Collins last June. He was sleeping in an abandoned frat house. “Oh, it was so embarrassing,” he recalled. “I wouldn't be sleeping in a frat house if I wasn't, you know, on drugs or in a dire situation.” He’d been drinking and using drugs since college at that point. He grew up in Limon, which he said was boring as a teenager, and was in trouble for shoplifting and vandalism in high school. In 2008 when he went
Colorado Public Radio •

New CU School of Medicine portrait exhibit presents real people behind the letters LGBTQ+

Around 1979, Dr. Nancey Johnson Bookstein was outed by a fellow faculty member on the quad of the CU School of Medicine. The woman asked her “Well, how’s it like to be gay?” “We weren’t alone, and I hadn’t told her. And I was mortified. And I was actually afraid of losing my job,” Johnson Bookstein said at the opening reception of Eye to Eye: Portraits of Pride, Strength, Beauty at the same school where she went on to work as an associate professor of physical therapy for 38 years. She and oth
Colorado Public Radio •

Abortion Providers In Colorado Prepare For Out-Of-State Patients After Texas Abortion Ban Is Passed

Abortion providers in Colorado are anticipating an influx of people from Texas seeking abortion care after a new law went into effect on Wednesday. The Texas law bans abortion after six weeks of pregnancy and allows private citizens to sue both providers and others who help women receive abortion care, such as rideshare drivers. Most women don't know they're pregnant until much later than six weeks after conception. “It has been a very sad week for providers and healthcare specialists and cert
Colorado Public Radio •

A Hundred Years After Irish Miners Lived And Died In Leadville, A Colorado Historian Is Bringing Their Stories To Life

“I couldn't believe that all of these people were just buried without markers. I mean they were given little wooden markers at the time,” said Jim Walsh, a historian and researcher at University of Colorado Denver. “But it really just grabbed me and stayed with me.” He first saw the cemetery in 2003 when he was working on his doctoral thesis. He had decided to focus on the Irish of Colorado. “And I remember even saying to myself that day that I was going to make this part of my life's work,” h
Colorado Public Radio •

Colorado ‘COVID Long Haulers’ Suffer Coronavirus Symptoms Weeks, Or Even Months, Later

In the early hours of an April morning, at her home in Erie, Malea Anderson woke up with what felt like an explosion of ice water up her spine and into her head. She had a massive headache and tried to get out of bed to go to the bathroom, but her limbs wouldn’t cooperate. She feared she was having a stroke. Her partner, Randy, took her to the emergency room. The doctor suspected she had COVID-19, but she couldn’t get a test. At the hospital, the 53-year-old had a brain scan that came back norm
Colorado Public Radio •

Denver Doctor Starts A Portrait Series To Honor Black And Women f Color Physicians

After weeks of working nonstop, Dr. Sarah Rowan had a day off and an idea. “I was just taking a day off and looking at the New Yorker magazines that I had mounted up on my counter, and there were a couple of beautiful covers of health care workers,” she said. “I was also thinking about some images in Denver — murals that are also health care workers that are just fantastic pieces of artwork, but I was noticing a pattern that women of color were not depicted as health care workers.” So she reac