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Kate Garraway has said she is still struggling to comprehend her husband Derek Draper’s heartbreaking situation as she opened up about his long recovery from coronavirus.
In a new interview since Derek (who is just 53) first fell ill and was admitted to hospital, the Good Morning Britain presenter shared the devastating impact the virus has had on her husband and family as he returned home from hospital. He requires 24/7 care.
“He came home April 7th so we’re a few weeks into it now,” she said.
“How is he? Look, he’s devastated by Covid.
“He can’t really move. His communication is very minimal. There are moments where they’re up, so in those moments you feel you know he’s in there.”
“He has a lot of memory. But the accessing of it is very limited.”
“He’s a long way from the Derek Draper [we know], but he’s home and he’s alive.”
In an interview for the Sunday Times Magazine she recently shared how his situation rapidly deteriorated once he caught the virus and even when it left him, the after-effects remained. “The very worst moment was when they said he could be locked in forever. And I just thought, this is a horror story,” she said.
Covid-19 caused him a number of devasting effects, from kidney failure, liver damage, bacterial pneumonia, and pancreas and heart failure.
“I don’t know if he’ll ever have any kind of life again. We just don’t know.”
Last year Derek was placed in a coma as medical personal helped him battle the virus, and while he has beaten COVID-19, he has still been unable to gain consciousness.
He was among the the longest surviving COVID-19 inpatient in the UK, and had been in intensive care for a year in critical condition.
In the documentary Finding Derek, Kate reveals that doctors had no idea why the virus had such an impact on her husband.
“Derek is the sickest person the team of doctors has treated this year,” she said, a stark reminder the disease may not have such dramatic effects for most, but so many have their lives changed as a result of the virus.
“As we pass the one-year milestone since Covid-19 changed the world forever, I wanted to get closer to finding out how and why it had made such a devastating impact to Derek’s life and how we as a family, move forward in this new world,” she said of her reasoning to share such private grief so publically.
Kate’s story isn’t intended to scare or cause fear, but it is a very real reminder of the battles many are still facing as we look at dwindling hospital numbers and talk of vaccines and the re-opening of our cities. So many are still fighting and doing what we can, staying apart by staying together, we are all doing our part in the battle of this pandemic.
It’s something we should never lose sight of.