KATE'S HOPE
Kate Garraway’s husband Derek Draper wakes from Covid coma but could be in ‘minimum state of consciousness’ for years
TV’S Kate Garraway says husband Derek Draper has emerged from his Covid-19 coma after 98 days in hospital.
The father of two, 52, has opened his eyes but has “minimum consciousness”.
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Good Morning Britain presenter Kate said: “I really believe he can hear.
“When medical staff say, ‘Good morning, Derek,’ he sometimes opens his eyes. We and the doctors are doing everything we can so that he can start to recover.”
However, Kate's GMB colleague Piers Morgan today said news of Derek waking from his coma is "probably not as positive" as some believe and his recovery is still "uncertain".
Kate, 53, and children Darcey, 14, and William, ten, speak to Derek daily using FaceTime.
She added: “We’re keeping positive and doing everything we can to bring him round. The children and I communicate with him every day on FaceTime while a nurse holds his iPad.”
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Kate told today’s Hello! magazine that doctors have been telling her to return to work so she can bring some normality back to family life.
She said: “The doctors have been urging me not to put my life on pause.
“They’ve told me that I need to go back to work and create a routine in our lives again. The children and Derek are all I’ve thought about and they’re the most important people in my life.
“But I must create structure and normality for the children, to clean the bath, put the plates in the dishwasher, tidy the house.
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“I also need to get back to work so that I can provide for the children and we can do things together, to make them feel that the light hasn’t gone out of their lives, that there’s hope for the future.”
Kate told how she has spent the past months simply waiting for the phone to ring.
She said: “I have been living at the end of the phone 24/7, waiting for news of Derek.
"But the doctors have warned that his condition could persist for years so I have to get on with life while we are waiting for him to get better.
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“Billy starts secondary school in September but Derek’s doctors say he won’t be out of hospital by then.
“My priority is to make the children feel safe, to not let them see me feeling vulnerable in a world where Derek was my rock.”
Kate told The Sun last month how doctors warned her that political adviser Derek might never emerge from his induced coma.
She said: “There was a terrible phone call from a senior doctor in intensive care.
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“My first question, the one I always ask when the hospital call, was, ‘Is Derek still alive?’ He said he was — but then asked me what my greatest fear was. I said ‘Derek dying.’
“He replied ‘Well, now I think I have to give you a second worst case scenario, which is that he never changes from this. That he is locked in this for ever’.
“He said, ‘I’m not telling you this to scare you. It’s because we don’t know if he can recover. We’ll only know over the coming weeks and months’.
"I threw up, there and then. People had said to me before that they thought he was going to die but not that he might stay in this state.”
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Derek was on life support for weeks before doctors were able to do an MRI scan to identify the damage done by the virus.
Kate said: “The virus has just attacked everything. He’s got a tracheotomy now, so he’s breathing through that.
"His lungs, which have clots, are showing some sign of recovery.
“But the MRI showed that he has damage everywhere, holes in his heart, his liver is impacted, and his pancreas.
Miracles of recovery
PREVIOUS examples of recovery offer hope to Derek and Kate, such as John Betts, who left hospital last month after spending a record 65 days on a ventilator.
Dad John, 59, was applauded at Northampton General Hospital after waking from an induced coma.
An unidentified woman of 35 recovered after 58 days on a ventilator at Southampton General Hospital.
Dad-of-three George Clark, 61, spent 52 days on a ventilator at Ayr Hospital after being hit by the virus.
Brian Harvey, 69, spent four weeks in a medically induced coma for suspected pneumonia, which was later diagnosed as Covid-19.
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"He’s now very diabetic which he wasn’t before.
“He’s been on kidney dialysis and his nerves are affected.
“Whatever happens, we’re looking at months of rehabilitation.”
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Kate Garraway reveals her husband Derek may be locked in a coma for ever after coronavirus ‘attacked everything’
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