Longer ago than I like to remember a neurology registrar was doing a lecture on epilepsy in the Clore lecture theatre in University College Hospital Medical School. He asked us to give him some causes of fits. Tony Davies (hi Tony!) and I were sitting  a few rows up from the front and he shouted out “exercise!” Puzzled looks. “Pardon?” said the registrar. “Exercise!” said Tony again; ”Exercise makes you fit!” A short pause then much laughter followed whilst Tony was summoned down to the front to help the registrar out with the rest of his lecture.

Well, we’ve joined a gym. I have never made a secret of the fact that I don’t enjoy exercise – it just makes me feel ill and always has done, ever since my earliest memories. I’m quite jealous of Chris who finds it gives her a boost, and of people like Dr Peter Saunders who finds running quite addictive and feel really good after. Perhaps I lack endorphins or something, I don’t know. However attempting to keep hypocrisy at a minimum (I’ve had to do health talks to current and prospective missionaries about how to stay healthy) I do exercise because its good for me. Apparently. So we’ve located a gym in a newish shopping centre 15 to 20 minutes drive away and signed up for 6 months. To do this we presented ourselves at the reception desk and asked to join. Two A4 forms were unceremoniously ripped out of a ring binder to which we added our name, mobile number and signature (the rest of the form we could leave blank – such irrelevancies as our address, age, date of birth, medical history etc.) She wrote a figure at the top of the sheet which was the cost of the membership and told us to go to the cashier. The cashier was in a different building. Off we trekked along the walkway outside past the open air swimming pool (we’re not going in there) through the cafe and into the bowling alley wherein is the cash desk. (Rumour has it the lanes are so uneven it doesn’t matter how good you are at ten pin bowling the outcome is completely random.) The forms were taken off us and we had to pay just under 13,500 ETB (“Ethiopian Birr” – pronounced “burr”). This is a cash-only society mostly. Understand that the largest denomination bank note is 100 ETB, so I had come prepared with a bundle of 100 notes in my bag and 40 more in my wallet. I counted out 3000 ETB and gave it to her. She counted it and looked puzzled. I said “that’s 3000, here’s 500 more” handing her another 5 and reaching into my bag for the 10,000 bundle. She added the 500 to the 3000 and counted them all again. She looked at me still puzzled as I produced the big bundle. “And here’s 10,000” I said. Well this destabilised the poor girl. She took the 10,000, took the elastic band off, added the 3,500 to it that she’d already counted twice, and counted the lot. Twice. My attempts to make it easier for her obviously a failure, I accepted the 40 ETB change and we headed back to the gym with our receipts.

The need for medical care stops for no man, and going to the gym is no exception. During my first workout my phone went off (interrupting my audiobook – Dan Brown’s latest nonsense) and I answered some questions about a child with a possible head injury. During my second workout on Sunday after church I was 5 minutes into my upright bike routine (listening to my audiobook) when suddenly a guy flew across in front of my bike, crashed head first into the neighbouring machine and promptly had a major epileptic seizure. I can’t say (yet) “out of my way I’m a doctor” in Amharic, so “hakim nenyh!” (“I’m a doctor”) had to do  as I leapt off my bike (I may have just exaggerated slightly) and handing Dan Brown to Chris I attended to my new, still convulsing patient. Several people sauntered up to see what the fuss was including the receptionist clutching a glass of water. As he was unconscious and fitting I advised her he was unlikely to need a drink right now. I also advised the three or four guys who’d turned up that dragging him into an upright position probably wasn’t wise either. He settled fairly quickly (phew!), his pulse and breathing came back to normal and my fear of having to do mouth-to-mouth receded. Once relaxed but still unconscious the men (one of whom turned out to be his brother) dragged him down to the end of the gym and laid him on his back on a work-out bench. I became assertive at this point and insisted he be laid on the floor where I put him in the recovery position and he slept peacefully for a while. I talked to his brother a bit and it turned out this poor guy is hopelessly under-medicated and has a fit every three or four days. And here’s the really terrifying bit – he drives regularly.

So, Tony, after all these years you were right – exercise does make you fit.