Kate Garraway has spoken openly about "grieving" for her husband Derek Draper, who has been in hospital almost a year after contracting coronavirus.
Draper’s extreme Long Covid and his family’s ordeal were explored in ITV documentary Kate Garraway: Finding Derek, which aired on Tuesday evening.
In the programme, Garraway admitted: "There’s been times where I’ve thought: ‘Am I actually grieving for the person I’m married to or am I fighting to hold onto that person?’"
Draper was admitted to hospital in March 2020 and was placed in an induced coma. He has suffered kidney failure, liver damage and pancreas and heart failure.
In the documentary, viewers saw an emotional video call between Garraway and her husband in November 2020, in which he told her from his hospital bed that he wanted to die.
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Garraway responded: "I promised you I will save you and I’m going to save you."
The presenter was asked whether she would be okay if Draper was "not her Derek" when he is discharged from hospital.
She said: "Well, he is still Derek, he is still him… he is still that person that you love, but he will behave differently and will be physically different.
"Will I be okay? I wont be delighted because I wouldn’t wish that on him, very tough on us both, but he is for better or worse…"
Speaking about the future of her marriage to Draper if and when he comes out of hospital, Garraway said: "It might be a rather beautiful thing, trying to look at it as a rather beautiful thing.
"I feel as though we might have to fall in love again – find out who each other are now a little bit."
When speaking to a distressed Draper in the documentary, Garraway tried to reassure her husband that "you’re coming back to your life".
The 53-year-old was open about the fact that her husband’s progress hasn’t been linear and that he has felt hopeless at times.
She said: "You’ll have a step forward, two steps back, you’ll have what seems like a huge breakthrough, and then the next minute, he sort of mouths: ‘Sorry, goodbye.’ I’m saying: ‘You’re not going to die, you’re not going to die, you’re not going to die.’ We’ve just got to get through it."
