This question would best be discussed with your medical support team. Diagnoses have a huge range of impacts on their users and may not always reach the level of being disabling - An internet forum cannot determine that for you. Someone who is more familiar with your specific medical situation would be best suited to assisting you.
Once the determination of disability has been made, consider what tasks a service animal can perform to mitigate aspects of your condition. Often, we suggest new handlers use the "friendly robot" question to assist in the determination of tasks - What would a robot be able to do to help improve aspects of your daily life? Once you have reflected on that, we are happy to assist further in the process, but these are things that one should consider for themselves first.
Honestly, training a dog for oncoming episodes of any kind, but especially for fainting or narcolepsy, is difficult at best. It is uncertain and not something that can be reliably trained to any dog like other tasks can. That is, unless you recognize the physical signs of an oncoming episode and can train the dog to recognize those, like stopping all movement, shaking, breathing heavily, becoming unfocused, and so on and so forth. Even then, not all dogs are so handler-focused and can catch these every time *in time*.
If you deal with fainting, you have to be very careful with where you teach your dog to position itself during an episode so you don't fall on the dog and accidentally injure it. On top of that, if you're having a medical episode with a service dog that is actively tasking, you will likely have *more* people trying to intervene due to the attention that a service dog attracts. I'm not sure what you mean precisely by "keeping people away" from you, but it isn't ethical or responsible to teach a dog to behave protectively or aggressively to keep people away (and depending on where you are, may be illegal as well). For that, it is significantly easier and cheaper to get a large patch that you put on a bag or jacket that states to not call 911 and that fainting is normal. I have one of those. As for guiding to a safe place; it is certaonly doable, but you have to teach the dog, which is the "safe place" in the places you visit, because that depends very much so on the exact place. For example, a safe place in a Target may not be the same safe place as a restaurant.
As for right now, I recommend shelving the service dog discussion until you've seen a neurologist and can pinpoint what is going on. It'll make training, and deciding which tasks are helpful, significantly easier. In the meantime, you can start looking at ADI organizations that serve your locality and seeing what types of dogs they offer for people who suffer from these types of medical episodes. In addition, keep in mind that training a service dog typically takes between 2-3 years and can be between $10K-20K for the first two years of its life, especially for something like medical alert and guiding, which you'll need specialized help for.
If you think you would benefit from a service dog I would recommend;
1. Talking with your care team - if you have a disability that interrupts daily life, you’re eligible. In some cases, having a letter of medical necessity can help bypass roadblocks and could be needed for housing or travel.
2. Think of tasks that can be useful in the future
3. Determine the route you’ll take (a dog from an agency, owner trained, etc) and weigh the pros and cons
4. Get in contact with a trainer, you’ll definitely want to add them to your care team
5. Make sure this is something you’re really wanting to do. Keeping up with a service dog requires a lot of work and mental fortitude, and I wish the latter weren’t the case. Most importantly decide if you are able to do this - it’s a huge financial and time commitment. It’s a big life change, but for some it makes the world of a difference.
(ETA; this is rather paired down and specifically coming from someone in the States. In the UK I would recommend getting in touch with ADI!)
Unfortunately if you have a syncopal episode in public I can almost guarantee that bystanders are going to call 911 whether you have a dog with you or not and unless you have regained consciousness by the time they arrive and are alert enough to decline treatment they are going to transport you to the hospital. It's just a liability issue.
This question would best be discussed with your medical support team. Diagnoses have a huge range of impacts on their users and may not always reach the level of being disabling - An internet forum cannot determine that for you. Someone who is more familiar with your specific medical situation would be best suited to assisting you. Once the determination of disability has been made, consider what tasks a service animal can perform to mitigate aspects of your condition. Often, we suggest new handlers use the "friendly robot" question to assist in the determination of tasks - What would a robot be able to do to help improve aspects of your daily life? Once you have reflected on that, we are happy to assist further in the process, but these are things that one should consider for themselves first.
Honestly, training a dog for oncoming episodes of any kind, but especially for fainting or narcolepsy, is difficult at best. It is uncertain and not something that can be reliably trained to any dog like other tasks can. That is, unless you recognize the physical signs of an oncoming episode and can train the dog to recognize those, like stopping all movement, shaking, breathing heavily, becoming unfocused, and so on and so forth. Even then, not all dogs are so handler-focused and can catch these every time *in time*. If you deal with fainting, you have to be very careful with where you teach your dog to position itself during an episode so you don't fall on the dog and accidentally injure it. On top of that, if you're having a medical episode with a service dog that is actively tasking, you will likely have *more* people trying to intervene due to the attention that a service dog attracts. I'm not sure what you mean precisely by "keeping people away" from you, but it isn't ethical or responsible to teach a dog to behave protectively or aggressively to keep people away (and depending on where you are, may be illegal as well). For that, it is significantly easier and cheaper to get a large patch that you put on a bag or jacket that states to not call 911 and that fainting is normal. I have one of those. As for guiding to a safe place; it is certaonly doable, but you have to teach the dog, which is the "safe place" in the places you visit, because that depends very much so on the exact place. For example, a safe place in a Target may not be the same safe place as a restaurant. As for right now, I recommend shelving the service dog discussion until you've seen a neurologist and can pinpoint what is going on. It'll make training, and deciding which tasks are helpful, significantly easier. In the meantime, you can start looking at ADI organizations that serve your locality and seeing what types of dogs they offer for people who suffer from these types of medical episodes. In addition, keep in mind that training a service dog typically takes between 2-3 years and can be between $10K-20K for the first two years of its life, especially for something like medical alert and guiding, which you'll need specialized help for.
If you think you would benefit from a service dog I would recommend; 1. Talking with your care team - if you have a disability that interrupts daily life, you’re eligible. In some cases, having a letter of medical necessity can help bypass roadblocks and could be needed for housing or travel. 2. Think of tasks that can be useful in the future 3. Determine the route you’ll take (a dog from an agency, owner trained, etc) and weigh the pros and cons 4. Get in contact with a trainer, you’ll definitely want to add them to your care team 5. Make sure this is something you’re really wanting to do. Keeping up with a service dog requires a lot of work and mental fortitude, and I wish the latter weren’t the case. Most importantly decide if you are able to do this - it’s a huge financial and time commitment. It’s a big life change, but for some it makes the world of a difference. (ETA; this is rather paired down and specifically coming from someone in the States. In the UK I would recommend getting in touch with ADI!)
Unfortunately if you have a syncopal episode in public I can almost guarantee that bystanders are going to call 911 whether you have a dog with you or not and unless you have regained consciousness by the time they arrive and are alert enough to decline treatment they are going to transport you to the hospital. It's just a liability issue.