The Address Of Choice For The Lifestyle You Choose: Franklin Club The Apartments At Franklin Club • One or two bedroom full apartments • Activities included • Scheduled transportation included • Exercise/card/game rooms • Meals optional • Housekeeping optional u aosuea • One or two bedroom full apartments • Meals • Housekeeping • Personal care assistance • Medication reminders ... and much more! ... and much more! t.: n HOPE page 69 bies. That, too, was a false alarm. "It was like night after night there was something else," Mrs. Fingeroot said. Natalie gained weight slowly. In an effort to make her life as normal as possible, her parents wanted to buy her clothing. They were unable to find anything to fit such a tiny body until they stumbled on the doll Aisle in Toys R Us. They bought up a selection of clothes to fit 12-14-inch dolls. "Still she swam in those clothes. They fit her in length but the dolls were fatter," Mr. Finge- root said. Every day, Laura Fingeroot made the trek from her home to the Detroit hospital and then spent 10-12 hours holding her tiny daughter. Natalie was good dur- ing these times, rarely crying and seemingly happy to be with her mother. `The nurses would tell me that she would cry at night," she said. "But she never cried for me." What was perhaps most dis- turbing to Mrs. Fingeroot was not the number of wires coming from her datighter but rather the num- Bridgepointe At Franklin Club < ber of parents visiting the nurs- ery. Oftentimes, she would notice an infant who never had a visitor. c--\ "When scary things happen, people step away," Mrs. Fingeroot said. Natalie, however, thrived, more than doubling her birth weight in two months. On the day she went home, she tipped the scales at 4 pounds 4 ounces. Since then, Natalie has gained 111 pounds and now stands at 5- feet- 1-inch tall. "I grew up, but I am still one of the smallest kids in my class," she said. She is an eighth-grader at Norup Middle School in north Oak Park and lives with her par- ents; her two older brothers, Bryan and Danny; two dogs, Clancy and Snoopy; a tarantula and a tank of fish. Away from her school studies, Natalie has a rabid interest in the Detroit Red Wings and the young musicians in the rock group Sil- ver Chair. She hopes one day to learn how to play the bass guitar and start an all-girl rock group of her own. ❑ The Ones Who Care For nearly two decades, Franklin Club has offered the atmosphere, amenities and value people look for in a full service adult community. Nurses in the NICU help the smallest human beings despite the job stress. JILL DAVIDSON SKLAR STAFF WRITER Let us welcome you to the Club Call (810) 353-2810 L inda Jenkins sometimes goes home from work and cries. A registered nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Sinai Hospital in Detroit, her job is to care for some of the tiniest human beings on this planet. Like the others who work with these little ones, she is tough. Day in and day out, she coaxes the ba- bies to eat, changes their preemie diapers and keeps an eye on their monitors. When the babies forget to breathe, as children this small do at times, she tickles their feet to remind them. • FRANKLIN CLUB Where You Choose Your Lifestyle 28310 Franklin Road • Southfield, MI 48034 Power Sculpt Kits • Polar Heart Rate Monitors • Trotter Treadmills • Landice Treadmills Ta) 0 L.) • X CI) 0 0 Outstanding Deals on New and Previously Owned Equipment. LANDICE SPRINT 8700 TREADMILL Power incline to 15% Grade • 0-11 mph 3 Horse Power 1 Year Labor/2 Year Parts Warranty reg. $2395 Now $2195 CO CD DIAMOND BACK RECUMBENT BIKES CD reg. $1299 Now $1199 n 0) Heart Rate Interactive Lifetime Frame Warranty 2 Years Parts Warranty 0 3 • • V) • E 1:5 CI) WE CARRY TREADMILLS $399 - $3999 0 CD 810-476-2213 rD F- EXERCISE WAREHOUSE 0 IT'S TIME TO GET IN SHAPE!! 0 20778 Orchard Lake Road (Just North of 8 Mile Road In The Orchard Lake Trade Center) ra 70 z 3 CD AB Shapers • Stationary Cycles • Recumbent Cycles • Power Sculpt Kits • Ca rdi og lid es PHOTOS BY DANIEL LIP PITT Our Warehouse is Stocked 0 - The babies themselves are fighters. They have to be with such odds stacked against them. But death is inevitable for some —\ of Ms. Jenkins' patients. And that is when she cries. "It is very stressful some days," she said. "You spend hours and hours trying to save a baby. When you leave, you leave it in the Lord's hands." Ms. Jenkins is just one of the nurses who works in the NICU at Sinai. In a unit in which hundreds of infants pass through in a given year, the workers face the chal- lenge of caring for not only the smallest but also some of the sickest children. Here is where the children born to a diabetic mother may stay for a short time, where children with con- genital abnormalities may spend their last days, where children with holes in their hearts may come for help, where children of multiple births may take two or more incubators. Although there are many diagnoses responsi- ble for landing a child in the NICU, there only seems to be one reason that keeps the nurses Christine Lee holds her two- day-old son, Justin, in Sinai's neonatal intensive care unit.