My understanding is that the average progression for variant CJD, from early symptoms until death, is just over a year. For "regular" CJD it's closer to half t

My understanding is that the average progression for variant CJD, from early symptoms until death, is just over a year. For "regular" CJD it's closer to half that. Long term progressions are known to happen but are rare even given the rareness of CJD, so your friend was quite the outlier.