07/08/2025
Meet your provider!
Ike Wheeler - PMHNP-BC, Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner
Where are you from:
I’m from all over. I was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and lived there until I moved to Colorado when I was 11. I lived in Colorado until I went to college in Massachusetts when I was 19. I lived in Connecticut for a job one summer and spent a lot of time in Rhode Island before moving to Knoxville, Tennessee, after college. After 3 years in Knoxville, I came back to Colorado for a couple years before moving to Oberlin, Ohio. I lived in Oberlin for 10 years – living in one home longer than at any other time in my life - before moving back to Colorado in late 2024.
Favorite thing to do:
I enjoy spending time with my family most of all. I also enjoying being outside, pretty much anywhere, in any weather (though I prefer dry to humid); reading (fiction mostly, some poetry and creative nonfiction); and playing games of all kinds.
Advice to students in college:
· Cultivate curiosity
· Follow your interests
· Spend time with people who are different from you
· Ask for help if you need it
Advice to younger self:
I’m not sure I’d want to give my younger self any advice. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to learn and grow, including from mistakes and missteps I’ve made along the way, and I wouldn’t want to trade those for knowing better without such experience.
Mythbuster:
I don’t know about a mythbuster, but a random and curious fact - blue birds aren’t blue. More specifically, they lack blue pigmentation, in contrast to yellow and red birds which produce pigmentation in these colors. The blue color we see in blue birds is related to the interaction between light waves and the structural composition of the birds’ feathers. A bit more information about this phenomenon can be found on this webpage maintained by the Smithsonian:
https://www.si.edu/stories/when-blue-bird-not-blue.
