I used to get terrible dreams at night for a while, and it significantly hindered my productivity and energy during the day because I was not getting good sleep at night. For me, I needed more aerobic exercise during the week and I now take a melatonin most nights, about 30 minutes before I want to fall asleep.
As far as dealing with you pains as they kick in, try listening to a meditative podcast. I get migraines sometimes, and over-the-counter pain meds can't really help. This one meditation podcast I listen to helps me focus past the feelings of pain I'm experience at that moment and get some sleep. Here's a good, iTunes downloadable resource: http://www.meditationoasis.com/
However, I'm a firm believer that everybody's body is different. What worked for me might not work for you. It's really important that you talk to a doctor you trust, and you should experiment with a few of their suggestions. If this counselor you are seeing doesn't make you feel like he understands and wants to help you, then find someone who does. Even if they are giving the right advice, clearly you don't feel comfortable with them or how they are communicating with you. Don't feel like you don't have options, and don't spend any more time suffering than you have to.
We're actively looking for test writers at the moment, but we also throw consideration to every dev resume that comes our way for our consulting projects.
My answer to the main question here is related to yours, since your a testing fanatic ;)
My company does web dev and consulting, but we struggled with how to manage long-term support. So we developed an automated html5 testing platform and started writing custom UX tests for our clients' applications. This way, if they continue to develop new features or whatever, they have a way of quickly checking for breakages. It works so well that we've now opened it up as a service we offer outside of our development projects.
We get a little bit of cash for writing the tests, and a little bit of cash for hosting/maintenance/updates.
Sounds like the other company is doing the hard work of marketing for you. Be thankful! Now you can focus your time on feature development, and if you come up with something good, they'll buy it or someone else will.
Try offering to guest blog or, even better, get someone good to guest blog for your blog. Do this by leaving comments on blog articles you like, following those bloggers, engaging with them, and after a while offer an opportunity to guest blog.
Also, user groups are always looking for people to speak at their monthly meetings, and speaking at a few of them is a good way to get some mentions and linkbacks. Try finding a few meetups that you could talk about your product (in less of a sales way and more of an informative way) or just something you know a little bit about. You also get to meet people in your industry, which is always a plus.
I used http://www.codecademy.com/#!/exercises/0 to learn Javascript and I found it very easy to use and progress. The only thing I was lacking was the ability to apply what I was learning, but if you have an actual project and goals for your friend to keep in mind during the lessons, that might be really helpful.
Maybe just break down very small components of the application your building that you want this person to "own", and give them the tools of codecademy or whatever to help them learn how to build on their own.
Either way, it's very admirable for you to try and take this person under your wing and show them how to manage their symptoms productively. I'm sure they will have a great time!
Instead of trying to predict "what" will come next, you should be asking: what are the commonalities? what will stay the same? what can you envision becoming simplified?
I understand exactly where you are coming from. I learned a lot of basics from codecademy.com, and their modules have come a long way.
However, no matter which way you try to learn, the best piece of advice I was given is to have an idea of something you want to build in the first place. Even if it's dumb, or too complicated for a beginner, it's good to have the ability to see what direction you want to go in as you are learning more and more about the different languages and how they work. Otherwise, you will get bored and frustrated pretty quickly, and you won't be likely to stick to the learning process.
As far as dealing with you pains as they kick in, try listening to a meditative podcast. I get migraines sometimes, and over-the-counter pain meds can't really help. This one meditation podcast I listen to helps me focus past the feelings of pain I'm experience at that moment and get some sleep. Here's a good, iTunes downloadable resource: http://www.meditationoasis.com/
However, I'm a firm believer that everybody's body is different. What worked for me might not work for you. It's really important that you talk to a doctor you trust, and you should experiment with a few of their suggestions. If this counselor you are seeing doesn't make you feel like he understands and wants to help you, then find someone who does. Even if they are giving the right advice, clearly you don't feel comfortable with them or how they are communicating with you. Don't feel like you don't have options, and don't spend any more time suffering than you have to.
Hope this helps; best of luck!