Having struggled with work and a chronic illness for close to twenty years, I’ve both gone to bat with big companies, and been an entrepreneur. I was a financial writer with a specialty in personal financial planning.

I did everything Rosalind suggests — found the best kind of work for my skills and health, the best company, built a network of allies. But my health still worsened to the point that I had to take Long Term Disability. The problem being that ADA accommodations, like working at home, are always enforced at the discretion of management. Always, management determines what is a “reasonable accommodation.” With a traumatic brain injury from a viral infection, I could no longer do math (budgets), multi-task, or have much social energy for the required corporate politics. I could sit and stare at a computer and write, very slowly. But my employer would not reclassify my job so I could focus on what I did best and preserve my health.

At first I had a manager who was wonderful in shifting the emphasis of my job, dealing with a hostile Human Resources department. But when my reporting structure changed, my new boss no longer let me work home one day a week. It was a huge political problem, as all working Moms wanted the same privilege and none got it. Chronically ill workers are just one group of people in the work place who ask for accommodations, and there are many more parents than ill people, and more power in their numbers. Our problems do not occur in a vacuum.

Few chronically ill people who’ve had to resort to taking Long Term Disability insurance from their employer, who do not benefit from six figure liquid savings, or the support of a spouse or family, can risk giving up the medical insurance, pension and other benefits their employer’s private disability insurance provides. The catch is, some policies – like mine — don’t allow you to earn any money at all. So to make $2,000 from writing a magazine article, I would lose, FOREVER, a middle class income, family medical benefits and a pension.

Besides being hit with a catastrophic illness, starting your own business is the fastest way to go broke. All the planning in the world cannot control market forces, variables like the price of oil. A home business is great if you’ve got a financial mainstay in the house, and your income is just supplementary. But if you’re the financial linchpin – I’d suggest staying on disability, and trying to scrape enough money together to invest in a passive income strategy – owning rental real estate, building up or starting a stock market portfolio. I realize that many chronically ill people never were able to work enough to get together much savings in the first place.

If you do plan a business, make sure you have enough in your budget for savings and investment, preferably taken out of your checking account every week. Don’t rely on credit cards for day to day expenses or business funding, and have a backup plan. And if there’s anyone in your extended family who can help you, talk to them about helping you invest in real estate or some other passive investment strategy.