It’s impossible to buy gifts for my dad. So I’m going to get him a stethoscope.

Hear me out now.

This year, because I was working and my brother was in Colorado with his fiancée, we decided to do Christmas at Mardi Gras. We’re from New Orleans, and it’s been about 15 years since my brother and I were together with everyone for Mardi Gras. It’s a festive time, so we figured, why not?

Now, I have been wracking my brain for 2 months trying to figure out what to get him. Eventually, I asked for a hint. The response was an email with a link to a commemorative belt buckle from the Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. It was $20 or so. Well, I didn’t think that was enough.

I also got him a smaller version of the leg lamp that The Old Man got as a “Major Award” in the movie “A Christmas Story.” It even came in a box marked FRAGILE (that’s fra-GEE-lay for those of you who don’t know Italian).

Well, it wasn’t that expensive either. Not that I think a gift has to be expensive to be nice, not at all. It’s just that my dad has sacrificed so much and invested a lot of money in me and my education (we went to private school K-12, even though my parents didn’t make much money), and I feel that he deserves for me to spend money on him.

So, I am going to get him a nice stethoscope with his name engraved.

My father is not a physician. He is a retired computer programmer. When he got out of the Army in 1977, he took a job as a manager at Wendy’s. This is a man with a degree in economics from Tulane University. At one point, he had three jobs, including the Army Reserves and working part-time as a real estate agent. He wanted us to have the best education so we could get ahead and enjoy our lives.

And thus, my father’s reputation as a caregiver began.

When my mother was in her early 40s, she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. It is a horrible disease, and I believe the years she was on steroids contributed to her death of a brain aneurysm at age 48 – three weeks before my father’s 50th birthday.

This man could tell you not only all the medications and dosages my mother was on, but he actually could explain the pathophysiology of her disease.

He was interested in it and how it worked, and he even bought several medical books so he could understand it better. He knew that if he could understand it, he could better take care of her.

One morning when she went to take her bath, they realized that the hot water was out. My father got up at 5 a.m. and boiled pot after pot of hot water for her bath because he knew that she wouldn’t be able to tolerate the cold.

Now my father is taking care of my grandmother, his mother. I know the rule of thumb is that there is a “dutiful daughter” who takes care of the parent, but my daddy is the “dutiful son.”

He calls me often to ask me questions about my grandmother’s condition, asking me about her INR, her aortic valve, and how Lasix works. He bought a pocket pulse oximeter to keep track of that, too. He weighs her every day and adjusts her Lasix and other diuretics accordingly. I’m totally impressed.

About a week ago, my grandmother was hospitalized for a CHF exacerbation. He had been concerned for several days, as she was gaining some weight and having

dyspnea even going to her bedside commode. So off to her PCP (yes, people still do that, apparently) to see what was up.

Dad said, “I told the doctor that I thought she was in CHF. After he listed to her lungs, he looked at me and said, ‘I think you’re right.’ ”

Before I came to town, he asked me to bring my stethoscope so he could learn how to listen to my grandmother’s lungs. After this bout of CHF, Dad said he wanted to know what to listen for so he’d know sooner if she was in trouble.

As I gave him a brief lesson, he was an attentive student. “I can hear the crackling sound here, but not here,” he said. “That’s right,” I told him.

“The higher you go, the less you hear because the fluid builds up mostly based on gravity.” He nodded his understanding. “Ah hah,” he said.

I don’t meet many people like my father in my work. I’m always amazed at some patients’ family members who really do know the ins and outs of their loved one’s illness.

They are rare specimens in the world. Most of the people we see think knowing their medicines means being able to tell us what color their pills are. And they usually don’t even know that.

We see the families who dump off Granny on Friday so they can go out of town for the weekend. So I thought the guy deserved something special for what he does for my Gram.

Let’s recap what I got my dad for Christmas:

• A belt buckle from Philmont Scout Ranch: $20.
• A leg lamp from “A Christmas Story:” $50.
• A stethoscope with engraving: $175.

Seeing my father’s face light up when he could actually listen to her lungs and understand her condition even more: Priceless.

Dr. Bundy is an assistant medical director at Baptist Medical Center East in Montgomery, Ala., and a former photojournalist, who not only sings in the car, but talks to herself, is addicted to diet drinks and shoes, and thinks emergency medicine is the greatest specialty.