Kate’s grim milestone: My six months of hell
As her husband’s hospital stay continues, Kate Garraway must be thinking that these are six months she’d rather forget…
It is a grim milestone nobody would ever wish to celebrate – but it has been six gruelling months since Derek Draper, husband of GMB’s Kate Garraway, was hospitalised on 28 March with Covid-19.
This makes her husband of 15 years the longest-surviving Coronavirus patient in the UK still receiving treatment in hospital.
The 53-year-old former political advisor, though recovered from the virus itself, is still desperately sick, as it wreaked utter havoc on his body. He has spent nearly 200 days in hospital to date – during which time he has been in and out of intensive care and also spent months in an induced coma.
Last Thursday, a tearful Kate revealed on GMB that, though she understood people’s ‘fatigue’ at all the rules, she had a warning for Covid rulebreakers: ‘It does make me tempted to show a picture of Derek in his current state and say “you don’t want this in your life. You don’t know who it will affect and how.” So, stick to it.’
Since that fateful day, when Derek was rushed by ambulance to a London hospital, Kate’s life, as well as that of the couple’s children Darcey, 14, and Billy, 11, has, of course, changed forever.
Derek is now in a state of ‘minimal consciousness’ – but heart-wrenchingly he hasn’t yet been able to speak to his loved ones.
Earlier this month, Kate, 53, had shared a heartbreaking update on her husband’s condition on GMB, as she revealed it was the couple’s 15th wedding anniversary.
‘There’s not a huge amount of change. But you have to think, well at least he’s still here with me, it’s a flicker and a bad day, but you just have to keep on going.’
In a previous interview, the brave former I’m A Celeb contestant explained, ‘ When I finally got to FaceTime him, seeing him unconscious was a big shock. He’s lost nearly 8st, a lot of it muscle throughout his body.
‘He looked thin and pale with dark circles under his eyes and there were lots of tubes.’
For most readers, this is desperately sad, but it is someone else’s tragedy. For the Drapers, however, this torture is a daily reality.
We are hoping and praying alongside Kate and her family, that Derek turns a corner.
‘I just feel like saying “you don’t want this in your life”’