The stories of people losing their check for working at all are probably people who were getting SSI. SSI and SSDI are two different things. SSDI is what you get if you were able to work and pay taxes for long enough before you became disabled, SSI is for people who never worked or only worked for a short amount of time. You want to be on SSDI, they give you more money and there are far less regulations on what you can do with it and how much you can earn on top of it.