Give Blood: In 1997 I was working as a newspaper journalist in Tokyo. It was a fun but stressful job and life in that big city was hectic. I was in my early 30s and exercised regularly. But the long hours and caffeine-fueled beverages eventually took their toll and one day, the bill came due. A bleeding ulcer erupted in my small intestine. I was admitted to the hospital, but doctors could not operate to stop the bleeding. They also could not give me blood. Why not? Because I am O-negative and less than 1 percent of Japanese have that blood type. I lived but spent one month in a hospital bed. My wife and I moved back to the United States a few months later and I’ve been donating blood regularly ever since.