Has anyone ever changed jobs while on chemo?

This is my first post here, and I hope I'm putting it in the right place - if not, could someone please redirect me?

I have a friend and coworker who was diagnosed in January, had a lumpectomy, and started chemo a couple of weeks ago. She and I are both concerned about her job situation. I won't go into detail here - it would take pages - but it is, in a word, *awful*. It's a retail job with major amounts of stress, some of it from corporate stupidity, but most of it coming from a new manager who doesn't like her (they worked together before; the woman transferred to another location and just came back in December). And this stress is not what my friend, Karen, needs right now. But it also doesn't seem to be a real good time to change jobs.

She's planning on talking to the social worker about it when she goes in for her next treatment on Thursday, but I told her I would try to find a message board and ask the question there; she's not online so she can't do it herself. Has anybody out there ever changed jobs while undergoing chemotherapy? If so, how did you do it?

Here's some basic info. If you've ever worked retail you know it's physically demanding, but Karen's job is even more so, because she's the receiver (handles truck shipments, both incoming and outgoing) and also stocks most of the product that's shipped in. She's very strong, but the chemo has made her tired (so far that's the only side effect, except of course for hair loss). She's still going in every day and doing her work, but I think she'd be more comfortable with a job that's less physical. And she'd need a somewhat flexible schedule to accommodate the treatments and doctor visits (something the store manager's not happy about right now). And then of course there's the pay - *and* the health insurance benefits. I used to be an employee benefit specialist, and back then - 20 years ago - group plans covered pre-existing conditions, but I don't know if that's still true. I do know it takes longer to get into a lot of group plans these days.

Anyway - lots of, uh, challenges here - but hopefully they can be overcome. She *really* needs to get out of this job. (I found myself a full-time office job and am leaving the store job on Friday; now I need to work on helping Karen.)

Is there anything I can do to help her with this, or any suggestions I can pass along for her to do? I'd really appreciate any help anyone can give here - and I know Karen would too.

Thanks in advance.

Peggy

P.S. So much for a short posting... 

Thank you for the suggestions. I just checked the employee handbook and there is a short-term disability plan, which she probably has because she's a full-time employee (I never looked into this myself because I'm part time and part-timers don't get benefits). She may be saving it for if she becomes too ill to work, but I'll mention it to her. I'm not sure what the state (Colo.) offers in terms of disability benefits, but I can look into that myself.

About the "protected class" status you mentioned - where could I find more info on that? I don't think it will help with HR, they're useless, but maybe I could go to the state department of labor; I'm planning on doing that anyway because of some illegal practices going on there.

I'm not surprised to hear about the pre-existing conditions clause - but I am disappointed. I won't go into my opinions about the insurance industry here.

Anyway - thanks again for your help. And good luck to you, too.

Peggy