Nurse's life ruined by long Covid as she's left unable to play with her kids

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A nurse from Devon says long Covid has completely ruined her life - leaving her unable to work, play with her children or even remember how to write her own name.

Jess Marchbank was admitted to hospital after catching Covid-19 in March last year and has suffered from a long list of "delibilating" symptoms ever since.

She is one of around 900,000 people in the UK living with the long-lasting effects of coronavirus.

The mum-of-two regularly experiences extreme fatigue, chest pain, headaches, swollen joints, brain fog and has deteriorating kidneys - and she says her symptoms are getting worse.

Jess - who is from Westward Ho! - said: “I came home [from hospital] and thought that's it, I've beaten Covid. And lo and behold, 16 months later I'm sicker now than I was then.

Jess says that even letting the chickens out in the morning is now exhausting. Credit: ITV West Country

"I can't get up in the mornings, if I do manage to get up with the children it then wipes me out for the rest of the day, I can't think, I can't even walk up the stairs without getting out of breath and feeling poorly at the top of the stairs."

Her job as a specialist community nurse sees her working with young families as a health visitor, but her symptoms mean she has not been at work for a year and a half. 

Jess says sometimes her symptoms are so bad she can not even remember how to write her name.

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She feels people don't always understand how "debilitating" the symptoms can be.

"Nobody really knows, unless you're living it or unless you've seen people living it, you don't know how debilitating and life crushing it is", she said.

Jess said long Covid clinics have not offered any hope as “they don’t know how to help” people with the long-term condition. 

Her children - who are aged three and six - also find it hard to understand. “It's been a massive trauma to them so the guilt of that is massive but then I can't counteract that because I'm not well enough”, she said.

“I love them dearly and I do everything I can to love them but I can't physically show them in the way I want to.

"I can't take them to the park, I can't bounce on the trampoline with them or play tag around the house, I can't do those simple things that we all take for granted and I'm only 34 so yeah that's probably the hardest thing.”