Last month, we vowed to never let the economy fall into tatters again, as the one-year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers was turned into a kind of mock anniversary of the global financial meltdown. October is the month we try and bring even more attention to the importance of detecting breast cancer early.

For most people, the collapse of Lehman and breast cancer awareness month are not linked in any way, shape or form. For this financial journalist, however, this will always be a time of year when I think about how a company took the highest possible road to help one of its employees battle breast cancer.

Meet Hannah

As managing director of corporate communications at Lehman Brothers, you can imagine Hannah Burns’s relief when the company reported its quarterly earnings in June 2005. Getting the figures out to the public was, and still is, one of her major job responsibilities.

Instead of going into her boss’s office to report on the earnings coverage, however, she had to sit him down and deliver the most difficult news of her life.

"I’ve got good news, and bad news," she told him. "The good news is that it’s early and very treatable; the bad news is that I have breast cancer."

Burns describes herself as a private person, but she went straight to her boss’s office when her doctor delivered the news over the phone. "Being in my function I can’t just disappear and not tell anybody. I just wanted to get it off of my chest and move on. It was an easy conversation. He was incredibly sympathetic, and shocked."

The fact that this mother of two daughters had her disease detected early had her believing that she would be able to "get it off of her chest and move on." The next few months, however, would prove to be a physical and emotional challenge that she could not have imagined.

Three weeks later, there was the surgery, which was followed by a rigorous four month period of chemotherapy and bone marrow shots, and then seven weeks of radiation.

In a feat that can be described as nothing short of heroic, aside from a one-week recovery period after surgery, Hannah only missed one day of work throughout her four months of treatments.

"In addition to wanting to teach my daughters a lesson on how to work through adversity, the firm was so supportive that I wanted to do my absolute best to show my gratitude," says Burns. "The firm said do whatever I need to do to get well. Knowing you’ve got that support is half the battle."

Not only did Lehman provide Burns with inspiration, but the firm also gave her the flexibility to work through her challenge. She had her treatments on Wednesdays, did not have to return to work, and she was able to come in late on Thursdays. Burns says her worst side effects set in on Friday afternoons, and Lehman allowed her to leave in the afternoon. The company also provided her with car service to and from the office throughout the entire ordeal.

If This Happens to You

If you find yourself trying to work through this challenge, here are some tips that may help:

Talk to your doctor before your employer: You need to know what you can expect physically and psychologically, so that you can be clear about your needs to your employer. That way you can come to your boss with a clear plan of action. Hannah, for example, purposely scheduled her treatments on Wednesdays. That way she would have the weekend to recover when the worst of the side effects hit about 48 hours later. She knew she would need Friday afternoons off.