Kate Garraway has updated fans on her husband Derek Draper’s condition amid his ongoing Covid battle – revealing he ‘understands everything’ and is having ‘lots more tests’ as a result of his awareness.
Derek has been dealing with the coronavirus for nearly 18 months, having previously been put into a coma while in intensive care, suffering serious complications such as brain inflammation and lung and heart damage.
On Wednesday’s Good Morning Britain, Kate, 54, updated viewers. The show host said: ‘His eyes lit up. We are very clear now that he does understand everything really, and understands everything that I tell him about.
Good news: Kate Garraway has updated fans on her husband Derek Draper’s condition amid his ongoing Covid battle – revealing he ‘understands everything’ and is having ‘lots more tests’ as a result of his awareness
‘He can’t respond still and communicate, and Derek’s been having lots more tests of things. We went to hospital a few weeks ago, (which was) the first time he’d seen medics outside of the home.
‘(They) asked him to hold his breath and release his breath, he asked absolutely everything they asked of him. Also just reactions to things and reactions to the children, his responses are appropriate.
‘It does really feel that way as if he is reacting!’
Speaking about her ‘double life’ as the wife of a Covid patient and a news reporter, Kate went on: ‘I think it’s reflecting on that double thing of living with it and reporting on it.
‘I think coming in here and the support from all of you has been amazing. I think its been very helpful when talking to political (figures) and talking to people who have been affected in all different ways.
‘Not necessarily an asset I would have wanted to have…’
Kate is planning to make a sequel to her NTA-winning documentary on her husband’s Covid battle.
She triumphed in the Authored Documentary category at Thursday night’s NTAs for her ITV doc Kate Garraway: Finding Derek, which told of her significant other’s battle with coronavirus, which he is still recovering from after initially being hospitalised in March 2020.
And Kate – who has children Darcey, 15, and William, 12, with Derek, 54 – has since revealed that she hopes to make a follow-up to the show.
She told The Sun: ‘We are going to make another documentary, there are plans for more. Derek has a very short window of energy, but we are trying. He has been home for four months now and it was enough for him being home. Now we are really hoping we can have more and more people in to see him.’
Kate admitted she was initially unsure about attending the NTAs but was delighted she did, as so many people thanked her for making the documentary.
She said: Kate was pleased she went to the spectacle, after previously admitting she wasn’t sure whether or not to go.
She said: ‘It was definitely right to go for all the people who came up to me and said, ‘Thank you, the documentary really helped me.’
‘They told me their stories of people they had lost or who were still damaged and suffering with it. It was really fantastic.’
In her acceptance speech, Kate said it was ‘brave’ of ITV to commission the programme, because nobody knew what to expect.
She said: ‘Thank you so much. It was a hugely brave decision of ITV I think to commission this. They didn’t really know what they were making.
They didn’t know if it was a story about bereavement or about triumph.
Lucy [Wilcox, the director and cinematographer] arrived in our home not knowing if she was seeing a family in grief or relief, and in the end, it was something between the two.
‘Thank you so much for voting. I wonder if the reason why you did is because our story is your story? I think we’ve all been touched by the pandemic, whether it’s livelihoods or mental health.
‘I just want to say to all the Darceys and Billys and Dereks, whatever you’re going through, however you’re affected, you’re not forgotten.’