Well, I guess it depends on the seizures. We've always been booked in for 3 days (which is really 4 days as you start recording Monday lunchtime and finish Thursday lunchtime) and then if they find what they need by Tuesday lunchtime they boot you out after 24 hours. But maybe that's not the same for different seizure types. Worth calling the ward (I think it's Tiger Telemetry) nearer the time; the ward sister or whatever was helpful on the phone.
The other thing - discuss with the prof up front whether she wants to do a meds withdrawal. It's fairly routine on the telemetry ward and they tried to do it to DD1, I had to get them to check with the Prof who of course wanted no such thing but there was quite a bit of arguing just to get them to check . Depends on who you get but the on-duty docs on Telemetry can be a bit .. er .. arsey. lol.
I don't know about "keen on" surgery. DD1 has a condition where they routinely do a hemispherectomy in about 70% of cases. Have done for years and it's pretty successful so they were very much "ok let's start the pre-surgery investigations". Which I was OK with because DD1 had spent a fair bit of time in the paed neuro ward in Tooting and that's all post-surgery and the whole thing was much less scary as a result iyswim. I'd seen a lot of kids wheeled in after brain surgery and whining about the rotten hospital food just hours later! I think they will only operate if they can't stop the seizures any other way - the reason we got dropped from the prog was that at the time of telemetry DD1 was on top form and reasonably controlled by meds. Not always the case, but they didn't catch enough on telemetry to justify surgery. Which I suppose is a good sign - even though she has a routinely operable condition they won't operate unless they feel they have to. I suspect also that the Prof has a very good feel of the risk/reward balance of operating on different kids with different MRIs, conditions and seizure profiles. The only criticism I'd have - and it's a general "feel" I get of GOSH not just this dept - is that they have a tendency to prioritise the "ill but cognitively unaffected" cases over the learning disabled. I get the slight impression DD1's Epilepsy is taken less seriously because if it affects her developmentally - well, it's not like she has a lot to lose, is it? Possibly I'm being unfair. They are very busy, and very important and all of that.
It will be your decision in the end, I'm sure. If he turns out to be a good surgery candidate you would still have the option to say - can we try keto first? But you have to bear in mind that some of these surgeries have a much better recovery the earlier you operate, because the brain is still developing and can rewire for any loss of function more easily. So there could be a down side to putting it off. But they'll talk you through all that exhaustively, I'm sure.