'the reality'
Kate Garraway says husband Derek Draper ‘is now a stranger’ after Covid battle in first look at new documentary
KATE Garraway has bravely opened up about life at home with her husband Derek Draper for a new documentary about his recovery.
Derek, 54, fell seriously ill with Covid in March 2020 and was placed into a medically-induced coma, and Kate has made the frank admission that he is "a stranger" to her now.
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Good Morning Britain presenter Kate, also 54, has invited the cameras into their home to reveal the reality of their new normal, after Derek spent 374 days in hospital.
A first-look clip at Caring For Derek shows Kate helping her husband in and out of bed using machinery and in other shots Derek can be seen using a wheelchair.
Kate said: "I’m very protective of people seeing him vulnerable, but this is the reality of life for people who are carers."
Their children, Darcy, 15, and William, 12, are also in the documentary which airs on February 22, as Kate speaks honestly about their situation.
She continued: "The person he is now, in many ways, is a stranger. If we can have a love and he can be a dad to the children in a whole new way, that’s life isn’t it?"
Kate previously opened up about how Derek's illness has impacted their marriage.
She told : "I’m not sure that we’ve ever fallen out of love, but I think a new path is emerging, a new way to be in love.
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"He puts huge trust in me. He just says, 'Whatever you think', which is wonderful, but I do get quite tearful about it. I think, 'God, I hope I’m worthy of that trust'.
"But I’ve got his back. That is a relationship in itself, isn’t it? How many times do couples have doubts about each other?
"That’s a positive thing to come out of this, to have that certainty of each other. He and I are very close."
This weekend Kate spoke about her struggles to communicate with Derek.
Asked whether they can have conversations, Kate said: "Not really. It’s hard. I watch him microscopically; I feel like I read every flicker so I 'get' him, but you wouldn’t walk into the room and think a conversation was being had.
"But he understands an enormous amount, he just can’t respond.’
She continued: "I don’t think things will ever be the same again, because I don’t think we as a family and he as a human being could go through something like that and not be impacted by it.
"Months in a coma and then this. It’s going to change him, even if it’s only emotionally. We’ve all been through so much. I’m not the same."
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