A life-threatening illness often focuses a person's mind on the meaning of life. For writer Main Kohda, the fear she may have developed cancer changed her life.

Kohda, author of the highly acclaimed book "Nihon Kokusai" ("Japanese Government Bonds"), was at the forefront of global financial markets in the 1970s and 1980s when she was working at the Tokyo branch of U.S. investment bank Bankers Trust, now Deutsche Bank. In 1988, she left and started a consulting business.

But in May 1994, she learned that a tumor in her uterus needed to be removed immediately. It was later found to be benign.