Professional careers with Bipolar disorder?

To those of you who have professional careers - what exactly are your jobs and how do you manage them alongside your illness? Have you come to an arrangement with your employer regarding flexible working hours, sick leave for particularly bad episodes, etc.? Before my symptoms developed (I am now 18 years old) I wanted to be an academic, though my hopes of fulfilling this plan are fading away. I fully understand that a regular 9-5 office job would be a bad idea for me. I am considering freelance translation, lexicography or editing/proofreading. The unemployment rate for bipolar disorder has really been getting me down recently and I don't know how bad I'll be a few years from now, so planning for my future is quite a tricky business.