Saturday, May 30, 2009
A family carries on at St. Mark's Lutheran Church
After Mike Gentry was injured, area churches stepped in with help.
JARED SOARES The Roanoke Times
Mike Gentry shares a laugh with his wife, Andrea Gentry, (right) and daughter Kelsey Gentry while playing Scattergories at their Roanoke County home. Mike Gentry plays Scattergories and does crossword puzzles to improve his cognitive skills.
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Mike and Andrea Gentry were high school sweethearts. They married as teenagers, and bought a house in Roanoke County. Andrea raised their children, and Mike brought in a paycheck moving furniture and later installing satellite television dishes.
"It sounds very old-school, but it worked for us," Andrea, now 32, said recently.
Then, it happened on a Saturday in February. Mike, 34, was installing a satellite dish at a customer's house. He fell several feet from a ladder, his helmet flew off, and his head crashed to the pavement.
The damage to his brain was widespread. He was in a coma for six days and didn't return home from medical treatment for a month. The man Andrea and her children -- Kelsey, 16, Skyler, 14, and Peyton, 8 -- knew as an agile provider who rarely took a day off from work is recovering. But he still needs help getting around, speaks more slowly than he did before, and it's unclear when he will return to work again.
"Every day is a struggle because I haven't been able to be who I was," he said, sitting on a living room couch in his house.
Mike and Andrea Gentry say they have not qualified for workers' compensation because Mike can't remember the fall and the closest witness arrived seconds after the accident, Andrea said. The help has come pouring in, though: St. Mark's Lutheran Church in Southwest Roanoke, Green Ridge Baptist Church in North Roanoke County and St. Timothy Lutheran Church in Vinton have held fundraisers and sent the family food. Teachers from the Gentry children's schools have collected money for the family. And envelopes with money in them have showed up in the mailbox.
"We've got more food now than ever before," Skyler said with a smile.
Other things have changed: The house is quieter, the children stay at home more to be with their parents and do more chores, and Mike is typically at home or in rehabilitation therapy.
"There's no semblance of our life before at all," Skyler said. "There is nothing in our routine that is the same. Our life as we know it has changed. Dad doesn't get up and go to work every day."
Andrea said Mike gains more physical strength every day, his memory is returning slowly, and every day he remembers more about the accident. She said the family is hopeful about being able to provide a full and accurate account to the insurance company within two years.
And, meanwhile, the family is trying to carry on, she said.
"The doctors say, 'You have to get used to the new normal,' " Andrea said. "Well, we're trying to get used to things the way they are now."
