| Big photos below. |
Of all the conditions that bring patients to The Clinic Medical Marijuana Centers, one is especially important to master grower Jay Price: multiple sclerosis. He knows which strains help the muscle pains and which strains help the eye spasms or the depression that often comes from battling the incurable disease. But helping a handful of patients find the right strain to ease their symptoms can only do so much, which is why for the last four years, the Clinic has been committed to fundraising for the national MS Society, quickly becoming one of the top donors in the region.
For Price, helping people with MS started as a personal mission — though at first he didn’t realize it, and then he wasn’t sure he wanted it. When he was just seven, his father was diagnosed with a progressive form of MS, meaning his physical and mental deterioration would continue to worsen. Back then, medications and treatments for MS were in their infancy, Price says. By the time there were drugs available to halt the progression, his father was too far along to want the treatments. “He didn’t want to pause it there,” Price remembers. “He wanted it to run its course and be done with it.”
| Master grower Jay Price with The Clinic general manager Ryan Cook. |
By the time his father died, he could no longer remember his son; Price was just fourteen. For a long time, he didn’t want to think about the disease or the painful memories that accompanied it. Even seeing Richard Pryor on TV suffering from the early tremors and speech issues was too much for Price. For years, he shut out the disease.
And then MS crept back into his life through another door.
For the rest of the story, click over to the Denver Westword.