Medical advances

My husband coveted his mother’s medical scales. Every visit included a weigh-in. ONe day he told his mother, “When you don’t need these scales, I want them.”
His mother was a mighty young healthy women. I figured she’d need those scales a mighty long time, but that did give me the perfect idea for his birthday: medical scales.
He was proud of his scales: “If I squint just right, I can ready my weight to an eighth of a pound.” He weighed himself before he jogged around the block, after he jogged around the block, at the end of a long day of work and before he went to bed. He tracked the morning variations in his weight on a chart taped to the back of the bathroom door. I heard about every pound he gained or lost as well as weekly weight variations.
Years later, his mother was not as young and healthy. She bought a blood pressure cuff to monitor her heart. By then, the master of health statistics lived too far away to share it. Instead he located all the businesses and pharmacies in town with free, digital, blood pressure machines. His favorite was next to the pharmaceutical counter at a local grocery store. He found many reasons to shop there, like the night we stopped to pick up ice cream. The instant we parked, he vaulted out of the van and disappeared inside the store. I followed more slowly.
He reappeared at the check-out line, “My blood pressure is 145 over 85, with a pulse rate of 72. That’s much higher than it usually is,” I told him it was because he ran to the machine.
A couple weeks ago, I was shopping with my son when I saw the perfect Father’s Day gift: a portable blood pressure cuff with digital read-out.
A showed it to my son. “Your father would love this. He’d take his blood pressure in the morning before he went to work, after he came home from wok and before he went to bed. Then he’d tell me every single number n the reading and what he did before he took the reading and how he is feeling. It’s the best idea ever for his Father’s Day gift.”
My son thought I was kidding until blood pressure man opened that gift. We heard reports on before and after church readings, going to sleep readings and early morning readings. The first time he mowed the yard, he gave us a detailed report of the rise and fall of his diastolic and systolic readings before and after mowing.
If that didn’t convince my skeptical son, he became a believer that afternoon he had a personal crisis. As he worked toward a resolution, his dad came home. One sad son explained his dilemma. his father nodded that he was listening, picked up the blood pressure cuff and wrapped it around his upper arm. The worrier stopped his tale of woe, looked at the blood pressure cuff, his father and then me and laughed. I signaled, “I told you.” That’s the day he became a believer.
For once I got the perfect Father’s Day gift. Now I have six months to find the perfect Christmas gift. I wonder if his mom has any new medical gadgets.