Kate Garraway has shared an update about her husband’s recovery from severe Covid, telling This Morning viewers that he is “smiling and laughing” and recognises his family.
Speaking to hosts Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby on Thursday, 23 December, the journalist said her spouse, Derek Draper, “remembers lots of little details”, but it is still uncertain if he will make a full recovery.
Draper was hospitalised with Covid in March 2020 and was later placed under a medically-induced coma. He woke up several months later and was able to go home in April this year, more than 12 months after he was first admitted.
He now requires 24-hour care at home, provided by Garraway and a team of healthcare professionals.
Recalling the day he came home, Garraway said watching him enter through the front door was “absolute unbridled euphoria”.
She said “everything” about their lives has changed, and that there is still “a huge way to go” before he is fully recovered.
“Now there are things that he does that are miraculous, he remembers extraordinary things. He’s saying words, and it’s definitely not a conversation, and he’s physically very changed,” she said.
“Everything has to be done for him, so we have a very different life,” she added.
When asked by Schofield about “how much of Derek” Garraway thinks she will “get back”, she said she is uncertain.
“It’s very hard to know really, we’re having to have a new relationship with him,” she explained.
“What is there, he is still him, he remembers lots of little details, he reacts to things the kids do in the way he would have before. He’s smiling and laughing at things, and he definitely adores and loves us all.
“At one point we thought we might be caring for him at home and we would be strangers, but he definitely knows us.”
Garraway, 54 married Draper, also 54, in 2005. The couple have two children; a daughter named Darcy and a son named Billy.
