Obviously, my detractors are not interested in learning the truth by reading the comments posted here by people who know me IRL. They've made up their minds about how I am, and don't want to find out they're wrong.

They also don't want to know that I meet (actually, I far exceed) the Ninth Circuit Court's definition of what constitutes "disability". (In Reddick v. Chater, it was made clear that needing to take one day off each week to rest meant she was disabled. I rest more than that.)  There's no legal requirement to be 100% bedridden to be disabled; there IS a legal requirement that you cannot work five consecutive eight-hour days, which I cannot. There IS a legal requirement to "maintain regular attendance", which I cannot.  The Ninth Circuit has been quite clear that "work when able" is NOT a reasonable accommodation under ADA -- you must maintain regular attendance.

I've also been told by a lawyer that I can't ask to be allowed to work at home, or lying down at the office, because that's also not what the ADA says must be offered to me.  So, the people who have legal training and have read what ADA requires employers to provide say that I am officially disabled. The opinions of people who can't tell whether I'm typing this lying down (which I am, because I'm having dizzy spells again) that the ability to type means that I am able to work, are meaningless until ADA is amended to say that the accommodations I need to be able to work are available to me.

The fact that I can work from home a few hours a week does not equate to the ability to work in an office 40 hours a week, any more than the ability to walk two blocks means that I am physically capable of running a marathon, or the ability to pick up a 7-pound cat makes me a champion weightlifter.  Even if I participate in NaNoWriMo, which requires writing about 1700 words a day, that proves only that I can type for half an hour a day, not that I can type as much as would be required in an office job.

Unfortunately, one doctor had the notion that because he had a one-page typed letter from me, I was not legally disabled.  He didn't know who typed it; obviously, if someone else had typed it, it didn't prove I could work.  He didn't know if it took 5 minutes to type or all day; obviously, if it took me all day to type one page, that doesn't prove that I can do enough work to keep an employer satisfied.  All he knew was that I was not 100% bedridden, and without knowing that the LAW says that's not required, he wrote a letter saying that I'm not disabled.  His treatment is most notable for the tests he DIDN'T do -- the ones that would have shown physical abnormalities.  When those tests have been done, they've been positive -- one was described to me as "off the charts".   That one shows infection or inflammation, and heart problems, things that can't be cured with counseling or the anti-depressants being forced on me over my objection that multiple psych evaluations over a period of years have shown no depression.

The judges keep going back to his falsified medical records (he wrote down what he wanted to hear, and not what I told him) and his misunderstanding of what's legally required for a disability determination, and ignoring the other doctors who've given me a slew of restrictions and limitations, done tests that were positive, so that they -- like my detractors -- do not have to admit that CFS is a real, physical, disabling disease and not something that can be overcome with counseling, positive thinking, and forcing myself to get up and do things.  

In fact, forcing myself to get up and do things makes me worse.  Following doctor's orders to exercise my way back to health, I walked every day for a week and got steadily worse until I wound up back in bed, having undone all the progress I'd made.  Just as research has shown will happen if it's really CFS and not depression or fibromyalgia.  

That research report is available at http://www.dynamic-med.com/content/pdf/1476-5918-4-10.pdf  Succinctly, "while our CFS subjects were able to increase their daily activity, they were unable to reach daily levels similar to sedentary controls. ... our daily exercise program was accompanied by a worsening of CFS symptomology."