Kate Garraway has said she and husband Derek Draper will fall in love again.
In Finding Derek, a documentary airing on ITV1 on Tuesday evening, viewers will see Good Morning Britain presenter Kate show her mettle as she refuses to give up on the man she loves.
Her husband of 16 years and the father of her two children, Derek Draper, was admitted to hospital last March after contracting Covid-19, and was soon taken to intensive care where he was treated for months.
Even after the virus had left Derek's body, his body was dealing with kidney failure, damage to his liver and pancreas, and heart failure.
"He is still that person that you love, but he will behave differently," Kate tells the cameras, "and he will be physically different.
"It will be very tough for us both. But he is Derek, for better or for worse.
"It may be a rather beautiful thing, I’m trying to look at as a rather beautiful thing.
"I feel as though we might have to sort of fall in love again."
Viewers will also see Kate speak to Derek on FaceTime - with him telling her he fears he can't go on.
She knew he could not always find the strength to speak but this time he did. And his words were distressing.
We hear Derek saying: “Kate, there’s no way out. There’s no way out.
“I’ve got to the point where I just think f*** it. Just f*** it.”
“As in die?” she asks, before his desperate and tearful response: “Yes... I don’t know how to cope, I don’t know how to cope.”
It would have been easy to dismiss as a momentary lapse but not for Kate, the woman the nation has watched and marvelled at as she coped with her life being so fundamentally shattered.
But Kate refused to give up, and vowed to save him.
“You don’t know how to cope with it. OK” she told him. “I know you feel like you’re trapped in your head and it’s terrifying.
"But you’re coming home, you’re coming back to your life and you will be the person, even better than you were before. You will be.
“I will find a way to make it better. I promised you that I would save you and I’m going to save you, I will find a way, but you just have to hang in there.”
- Kate Garraway: Finding Derek is on ITV, Tuesday at 9pm. Kate Garraway The Power of Hope is available for pre-order now.
