My Border Collie has had epilepsy since she was about 7months old, she's 5 in Feb. Sometimes she goes weeks and weeks without any, then she'll either have a couple of fits, or she'll go all the way and have laods. For example just last weekend she had nearly 20 fits between Saturday and Tuesday.
The worst we ever had was when she first began fitting, she had to be put on the same meds used to put animals to sleep, she was kept on that until they could bring her round without her fitting. She wasn't back to normal for almost 6mnths afterwards. But she's a fighter, I think we'll always ask ourselves whether we should have let her go when she was put into a coma when she had severe fits the first time. But when she isn't fitting- she loves life.
She loves being taken for walks and when you throw things for her to catch and she adores playing tug. She's an amazing pet. I know there will come a time when we have to have her put to sleep, she'll have one too many fits and fry her brain and it won't be fair to her anymore. But people that automatically have epileptic animals put to sleep don't see the greatness that those animals can be.
I'm lost without my dog (I've moved to uni and had to leave her with my parents, the landlord did let me take my kitten though!)
Money is always an issue though, luckily we got her insured before she had fits so all her meds are covered thank God! I just think it's sad that dogs that are basically normal apart from a couple of episodes every 4-6weeks, get left behind or put down because there arn't enough people willing to put in the time and energy it takes. I'm not condenming thing, it's just sad for the dogs.
Steph