When it all goes wrong with a personal care Assistant!

For a long time it’s just been hubby and I plodding along together as a team, but having a Progressive muscle wasting disease called muscular dystrophy, my body changes year by year, it can sometimes be hard on a relationship/marriage with me constantly needing help with everyday tasks like dressing, washing even going to the loo it’s kinda like having a baby just one that can verbally tell you what they need! you reach a point where needing extra help is a must to Relieve that added pressure for hubby of working a job as well as caring for myself. Or you can lose that sentence husband and wife!

January of this year we started our Journey into the world of having a PA (personal care assistant). It hasn’t been without it ups and downs. But where do you draw the line at being a boss and the friendship your building.

I’m sure most disabled people and families have come across and found it hard to deal with when employing a carer/PA. It’s Inevitable that no matter who you employ your always going to build some kind of friendship with that person, with the amount of hours your spending together you get to know one another in such a personal capacity. Caring for someone Is a very personal job.

But when things go wrong where is the line drawn on being the boss and being a friend, it’s hard when you want to be a friend but also need to remember that you employ them to do a job,

Our Journey with my first PA didn’t last long before cracks started to appear, the disrespect grow more over time, then taking advantage just got so bad the anxiety of looking at my phone everyday worrying when you would receive that text message full of reasons not to come to work. but because you need that extra help you find yourself being way more lenient than you should be, forgetting that their there for your care needs not you for them. You find your caring for them more than they care about how their actions are affecting you.

Just to make sure I wasn’t left in the lurch sometimes feeling very much backed into a corner if I didn’t meet their needs just to keep them happy enough to stay and keep working became a real struggle mentally. Finding myself crying with no-where to turn and lost of what to do.

By the end of may the cracks became great big holes and in a whirlwind of drama, disrespect and lies it became hubby and I again, with hubby foreseeing the end way before myself he gave up his job half way through to make sure he was home for those days of calling in “sick” that became more and more frequent.

The emotional de-stress this has caused has definitely had it’s toll on my mental health as well as my home life, it was hard enough for hubby to hand over my care to someone else, trusting someone was a hard thing for him, for me this person had made me feel like a burden and I couldn’t help feel like I’d let my husband down he now wasn’t working which was his time away, his time to do something for himself and back caring for me full time.

But all this still doesn’t change that we need extra help, we have learnt a lot from our first experience, So for the last few months I’ve been I’ve been trying to recruit again but this time around two PA’s not just one. I just hope that we can brush off the bad experience the first pa made us feel, and doesn’t impact on the new ones as it’s not fair that just because we had a bad pa before them that we can start a fresh as if we never had one before.

Here to new beginning!

Kerry x

I’m sure many of you have your own stories from both sides, do you have personal care Assistants or are you one yourself tell me your story good or bad?