CHAPIN, S.C. (WIS) - When most people think of Alzheimer’s disease, they typically picture it affecting grandparents or older loved ones. But for Melissa Pinner, a Midlands mother of three, the diagnosis came in her 40s.

Pinner lost her mother to Younger-Onset Alzheimer’s disease when she was in college.

Last November, at just 47 years old, she learned she had the same condition.

“I knew what was coming for me,” Pinner said.

Her best friend, Heather Bowers, immediately stepped in to help.

The pair illustrates how people can do things they do not even realize they are capable of for people they love, and are showing loyalty and strength in the fight against Alzheimer’s.

With one child in college and two teenagers at home, Pinner cannot work now.

Shortly after Pinner’s diagnosis, Bowe

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