Newly diagnosed and many questions

Hello everyone, I have a number of questions and a story to tell. First, I am 35 years old. I used to have fever convulsions all the time when I was a kid and they told me i'd outgrow it, and it appeared I did. My junior year of high school when I was 16, I had a grand mal...and they thought it was a freak thing, no big deal. So... about a month/month and a half ago... I was sitting at my desk at work, not stressed... no big deal (i'm an IT engineer for a living)... and all of a sudden I felt this huge wave come over me and I became INCREDIBLY nauseated. Had a friend drive me to the nearest express care... they checked my blood sugar, that was fine... diagnosed me with vertigo and sent me on my way. I literally had to stare at the floor to stop myself from vomiting. I wasn't buying the vertigo diagnosis, just didn't seem right. So I talked to my family doctor and described my prior history (my Mom is a diagnosed epileptic)... and they said they wanted to do an EEG just to rule it out. No problem. Well.... I got the EEG results this last Thursday. It showed "Left temporal epileptiform activity" and a mild response to the strobe stimulus. Turns out... my doc thinks what I was experiencing wasn't vertigo, but a seizure. So, they told me not to drive for 6 months, want me going on 25mg of topamax a day (smallest dose) and have referred me to the University of Michigan neurology department. So my questions are this - how accurate are EEG's? Is it possible there was some kind of mistake? My job requires me to drive to client sites, and obviously at this point... I can telecommute to some degree, but I clearly can't perform all the duties of my role without being able to drive. I'm worried and very concerned... this will financially ruin me :( Any help or suggestions here are appreciated.