> A few months ago I was talking at a family gathering and learned that one of my distant relatives has CJD. They're a high-ranking company executive, but their cognition is rapidly wasting away and will be dead within a few years
Are you sure it's CJD? Article says 95% of CJD patients won't live 12 months after diagnosis.
> Another family member that was a nurse in Kentucky(?) said they have a high rate of prion disease due to farmers inhaling contaminated dirt for years.
I was told mad cow disease and CJD interchangably, which looking it up seems to be slightly different. I don't know the difference between CJD and vCJD and Wikipedia isn't helping much.
Honestly, I don't know how fast it's progressing, so it may in fact be months. They may already be dead for all I know, but it sounded like they were diagnosed several months before - they don't know how long ago she got it though, due to the long incubation. The family member mentioned mood swings, improper outbursts in conversation, and memory degeneration and how they're nearly bedbound now due to loss of balance.
The nurse family member said cow farmers, so I assume cow feces contaminated dirt, and that their brains looked "like Swiss cheese". This was also in the context of mad cow disease. I checked my notes from the day and it was North Carolina, not Kentucky.
Are you sure it's CJD? Article says 95% of CJD patients won't live 12 months after diagnosis.
> Another family member that was a nurse in Kentucky(?) said they have a high rate of prion disease due to farmers inhaling contaminated dirt for years.
What kind of prion disease and what kind of dirt?