The gory details of why I can't type:
In August of 1996, while working at Dimension X, I began getting pain in my hands while typing. Within just a couple of days, the pain became unbearable and I had to stop. I tried using a DataHand (a radical pseudo-keyboard-like device whose aim is minimal finger motion), but that didn't work for me, either. I tried a lot of rest and thinking in my head and writing down my thoughts about software design when I couldn't actually type. (I have in fact found that this works extraordinarily well for me. My strongest area in computers is in software design and architecture, and much of that is not done actually at a screen, coding away, but in writing, just like anyone else -- using a word processor, pen and ink, or whatever. I've recently been doing a lot of work where I write down ideas or even an entire specification, and then work with a transcriptionist to get what's in my brain into the computer.)
But unfortunately, Dimension X at that time was working in Internet Time, and deliberately so: They set insane deadlines and deliberately underhired high-level staff (i.e. other software developers and the like), so that the equity of the founders would be greater -- their aim was to IPO or get sold quickly, which they did. (They were sold to Microsoft just a few months after I left.) The result was that there was constant pressure on the people that were there to finish up what was essentially the work of twice as many people in incredibly tight deadlines. There was no room for bothering to design software before writing it -- just write the damn thing NOW so we can get it out yesterday! In this environment, it's obviously quite high stress, and I was working 60 or 70 hours a week regularly. (And the rules say, no overtime pay for salaried employees! Urk!!!)
There was a particularly tight deadline -- Dimension X had to present its Liquid Reality VRML-in-Java toolkit at SIGGRAPH (a once-yearly computer graphics conference) in early August, 1996 in New Orleans. The Important People got to go, but others (including me) stayed behind. One of the major presentations the CEO was to give was of Dimension X's VRML editor. The head of this project was a PhD in theoretical computer science with a number of published papers on the mathematics of 3-D graphics. This guy really impressed the CEO with his qualifications -- but unfortunately he had no ability at all to program. What was worse was that he didn't realize this, and as a result he filled the code base with garbage and often messed up other people's work. As the CEO was readying his demo of this program he discovered, not surprisingly, that it didn't work at all. The result was a frantic call to me from a co-worker, stating that we had 24 hours to fix things before the CEO's presentation! We worked pretty much the next 24 hours straight, throwing away and rewriting the PhD's code and undoing the damage he had caused to the rest of the code base.
A couple days after that, my hands suddenly began hurting quite seriously. A week later, there was a reprieve of about a week, and because of the still relentless pressure, I made a huge mistake and dived back in and coded up an important, missing piece of the VRML Toolkit. At the end of that week, my hands flared up again with a vengeance and continued a long downward spiral, described in the general history page. (I sometimes wonder what would have happened if, instead of revving right back up to demon-banshee coder style, I had had the guts to stop coding completely and insist upon a medical leave. Perhaps things would have just healed.)
Naturally, I filed for Worker's Compensation against Dimension X. It took a couple of months -- Dimension X had some nasty yahoos working for them who told me that they preferred that I not file Worker's Compensation, that they would just take care of it "in-house". This was very much against the law, but I didn't know it, and neither did my primary doctor, who was sweet and nice but completely, utterly clueless about Worker's Comp. I only realized this a couple of months later, when I saw another doctor who hammered the point home that I must file Worker's Comp, and that Dimension X's attempts to persuade me not to were totally illegal.
I have been fighting for my Worker's Comp rights for years and years. It's an unbelievably broken system; it was designed to minimize the need for a lawyer in exchange for greatly reduced benefits to the worker, but in practice the insurance companies actively wage war against the workers, and you will get screwed if you don't have a lawyer. Luckily I did have a lawyer, and a pit bull at that; so every time that my insurance company tried to screw me, my lawyer jumped up, forced the law down their throats, and unscrewed the situation. Now, almost 4 years later, it looks like my case will finally get resolved. (In my favor, thank god.) My medical bills and prescriptions will continue to get paid for, and I'll get some money paid to me.