Doctor Hilary says Kate Garraway’s husband Derek Draper was ‘panting after every word’ before he was rushed to hospital

I’M used to all the other presenters at Good Morning Britain calling me up now and again for medical advice butsomething about Kate‘s call was different.
This wasn’t a breezy “can I just ask you something Doc” question.

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There was real concern and worry in her voice. It was about Derek.
He had had some unrelated shoulder and back pain which had been getting worse but now he had sinusitis like symptoms and a severe headache.

She said he looked and felt awful and worse still he was increasingly and puzzlingly breathless.

So I asked to speak to him directly and Kate passed him the phone.

He sounded clear concise and calm but was .. panting after every other word.

I could not diagnose COVID-19 specifically over the phone but I knew immediately this was serious.

I asked him to take the deepest breath he could and hold it.

A man his age with no previous respiratory problems should be able to last 45 to 60 seconds fairly easily.

Derek managed just eight seconds and then was really puffed out.
“Don’t even bother with NHS 111 or your GP,” I told Kate.

“Call an ambulance. Now. Call 999 and tell them Derek is in respiratory distress.”
The paramedics were brilliant as usual and Derek was immediately admitted to the Whittington hospital where tests for COVID-19 were positive.

It was soon obvious that there were signs of multi organ involvement but the worst of them however was the feeling of suffocation and the alarming lack of oxygen in his blood.

Later he pleaded with the medical team to be put into an induced coma and onto a ventilator .
That was many weeks ago and this cruel virus which can cause liver kidney and heart failure as well as inflammation in the blood vessels in the brain played out its full horrible repertoire in Dereks body.

He even underwent emergency treatment called ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) in a specialist hospital to artificially boost oxygen levels in his blood using a kind of heart-lung bypass machine requiring anticoagulants to keep the circulation flowing.

But Derek is still alive and his body is still fighting 10 weeks on.

Many victims of COVID-19 have made a full recovery even after several weeks in critical care. Others have not been so fortunate. Kate has been incredible with Derek, with her children and in herself but she is also realistic.
This is a novel poorly understood and unpredictable virus and it is impossible to know for sure the outlook for patients like Derek.

We know from international experience that the recovery which everyone is praying for can be very slow and sometimes never fully complete.
Why does a previously healthy middle-aged man with no underlying medical conditions become so sick so fast when others are hardly affected?
Doctors are even now trying to understand this.

Meanwhile Kate is living with agonising uncertainty.

Derek is now testing negative for the virus.

The organism itself has been cleared from his body through the development of natural immunity. But this was slow and the damage it has wreaked remains apparent.

He is in the best medical hands and with Kate’s enduring love and support he has every possible chance of pulling through.

He will not be out of our thoughts.

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