Derek can still charm me
KATE Garraway says her sick husband is sometimes aware enough to remember to flatter her since he returned home.
But she said Derek Draper, 53, who was in hospital for a year with Covid, struggles to keep the conversation going.
The former political adviser was admitted in March last year and was so ill that doctors placed him in a coma.
Kate said of his return to the family this month: “It’s been wonderful having Derek home and there are lots of little positives.
“There are little moments of reaction and he actually said something the other day. I walked in the other morning... and he said, ‘New dress?’, which was just amazing.
“And it was, actually! So I thought it was amazing on so many levels because he recognised it and he realised and remembered that I need a lot of flattery, so there was some emotional connection there.
“It was just a little moment and then, of course, there was nothing.”
She told her Good Morning Britain co-hosts that it was unclear whether being at home was helping him or the positives were just being noticed more “because I’m there to see the little things”.
Derek has been taken off all machines and breathing apparatus but has care at home, which Kate has adapted for his needs.
Last month ITV broadcast Finding Derek, a documentary exploring his illness and its effect on their two children.
In one scene, Kate, 53, recalls being told by Derek’s doctors that he was the most seriously ill person they had seen who had remained alive.