Alzheimers at 54!

I have a good friend who was just diagnosed with advanced stage Alzheimers! She is 54. Yes, I definitely knew...so it wasn't surprising to hear the results of her skull/brain catscan confirming all this. I've had that feeling for a while. Yet, when you have confirmation, it makes it all much more real. She helped take care of her elderly mom when her mom started having some dementia (before cancer was found shortly before her death.) My friend's sense of humor and funny blunt quips were the first things that I noticed that I liked about her. She is the sister of a very good friend of mine. We've become close friends in the last several years. I'd invite her to my short jaunts out of town and she loved going with my boys and I to the beach and waterparks. When I got a restaurant or movie giftcard, I'd invite her to go eat or watch a movie with me (it was always a good excuse to get her out of the house)and we like the same kind of movies. This still happens and I'm sure we will continue doing this. Of course, in the last couple of years, I've noticed that she's been less sociable and forgetful. She has really bad anxiety and when she becomes really tense, she'll tend to go blank so it was initially difficult to determine what was happening with her. But when she couldn't remember her kid's names (or birthdates,) it was getting clearer. When I took her to get her license renewed last year, she got so confused reading the lines that they couldn't renew it. The list goes on and on. She had been separated when I met her too but since then, her hubby moved back in and they've reconciled. Blessing in disguise. Just like my MIL, I'm going to hate yet watching someone else I really care about slowly lose all her memories. I've said it before and I'll say it again...Alzheimer Sydrome sucks! I think it's even more cruel that someone who is much younger than the typical elderly person be stricken with this absolutely slow and horrible death sentence of sorts.