living with epilepsy

my dog gerdie has been diagnosed with epilepsy. her first seizure, that i witnessed, was in february of 2007. it was one of the scariest things i have ever seen. at first, i had no idea what was going on. it looked like she was trying to get up, but her leg was asleep and she couldn't get her footing. but then she just keep shaking and her eyes looked strange b/c they were completely dilated. of course, i freaked out and started screaming, and fortunately my brother happened to show up at the house and he picked her up and carried her to my car so i could rush her to the vet. however, by the time we got her in the car, the seizure was over and she was wagging her tail like nothing ever happened. i took her to the vet anyway, and they ran tests, and all of the results were normal. the vet told me to keep a log of her seizures and if they became more frequent or began to last longer (this one was about 4 minutes, although it felt like 20) she would need to be medicated. fortunately, she only had a few more over the next 12 months. however, last month she had 3 seizures in 2 weeks, 2 of those being on the same day. witnessing that many that close together made me think she's probably having the seizures than i am aware of. so we took a trip to the vet last week, and made the decision to put gerdie on phenobarbetol, an anti-seizure medication. she will be on the medicine for the rest of her life, but at least no more nasty seizures. the only negative side effects i have observed are she is a little dizzy and her appetite and thirst have significantly increased. in fact, the other morning while i was getting ready for work, after she had just eaten, she busted into the dog food container and was chowing down like she hadn't eaten for days. which is funny because she normally eats one piece of food at a time. now, i think she could out-eat monty! okay, maybe not.