My experiences with PCA's have been good, bad and everything in between.
I've been using personal care attendants for close to ten years. In that time, I've had six attendants. It's taken me the first five attendants to get the process of finding, hiring and keeping a good one right.
The first one was wonderful for the first few years. The trouble was that our relationship became more of a friendship for her to take me seriously as an employer. We went to lunch, to dinner, to the movies. She even took her son on vacation with my family. I knew that was the beginning of the end after she paid little attention to what I needed while on vacation. The last straw came when her grandfather had a heart attack and she neglected to come in to work or call me to let me know what was going on so that I could make other arrangements. I don't mean to sound heartless and cruel, but hospitals have phones.
After that, I had an aide who was, again, wondrful at first. I became friendly with her, but not as close as with my first aide. I was learning. I was still living at home at the time that she was fired. Well, actually, she quit before I could fire her. I found out that after dhe dropped me off at work, she and her boyfriend were taking my parents' van for joyrides, running out all the gas and putting 30-40 miles on it. I confronted her and she quit.
One only lasted a month because, in her words, I didn't need enough care to make it worth her while. But before she left, she stole an entire bottle of Vicodin from my post-op father. One told me that she was looking for a new job and became verbally abusive when I told her I had found a replacement when the time came.
The attendant I have now is working out perfectly. I have learned to strike a good balance between employer and friend, which is really what you need to do. All the books and manuals I've read tell you not to get emotionally involved at all. But how can you not? When this person is in your home, taking care of you for however many hours a day, you can't not become a little bit friendly.
You just need to find the right balance.
