Yahoo News Kate Garraway returns to 'GMB': 'Doctors told me to get on with life'
Kate Garraway has said doctors have told her to get on with her life as her husband continues to battle the after-effects of coronavirus.
The TV presenter – whose husband Derek Draper is in a coma after almost dying from COVID-19 – returned to the Good Morning Britain studio and announced she will be taking over hosting duties from next week.
Garraway said: “It’s lovely to be back. It’s like coming out of a little bubble of sadness.”
Read more: Piers Morgan says Derek Draper 'isn't out of the woods'
The 53-year-old former I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! contestant went on: “The doctors are saying to me now, you’ve got to get on with life.
“I have got to get on and do the things you're supposed to be good at. I'm going to come back on Monday. I'm not sure I’ve got quite the fight to be Piers Morgan! It’s going to be me and Ben Shephard.
“The doctors have said you’ve got to get on and do that because they're worried about me. I've got to get going and I've got to get back.
“Everyone's having to do that and I’m not special or different. Everyone’s having to get on with sadness and loss and grief.”
She added: “Derek would not just be saying come back, he'd be saying why haven't you done it before?!”
Garraway revealed Draper is in a coma but opens his eyes, and she believes he can see and hear his family.
She, son Billy, 10, and daughter Darcey, 14, have not been allowed to see Draper due to social distancing but they speak to him on FaceTime every day.
'I just thought come on Garraway! Derek would be incensed with me. I have got to get on and do the things I’m good at.’
Kate Garraway has a very special announcement this morning.
She’s back to present the show on Monday!💪 pic.twitter.com/FIsUDDwoDC— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) July 8, 2020
Draper is now COVID-free and the TV presenter hopes she and her children will soon be allowed to give him a hug.
She said: “I’ve been fighting to do that, but I'm respectful of what the doctors say.
“I said you can now shop in Primark, surely I can give him a hug?! And they say we’ve got to be careful. But I’m hoping we can do that soon.”
Garraway and Draper, 52, have been married since 2005.
The TV presenter revealed doctors had told her six times that her husband “isn’t going to make it” and that it is a miracle he is alive.
She said: “It is a very desperate situation, it’s very difficult.
“Of course, there’s fantastic hope that he’s still alive. The doctors do keep saying it is a miracle he’s still alive. Six times they said he’s not going to make it.
“He’s been very, very sick. The problem is, is that it’s a new disease which nobody knows, so there’s no data. So what they can say to me is, ‘It’s great that he’s here, it’s great that there are some flickers of hope’.
“His lungs are starting to recover a little bit, his kidneys are doing better, his liver is doing better. They don’t know how much better he can get. There is just nothing he can compare it with.”
Read more: Piers Morgan says Kate Garraway’s situation is ‘unbearably sad’
‘Wonderfully his eyes are opening.’
‘It's a desperate situation but there’s fantastic hope he’s still alive.’
Kate Garraway joins us in the studio to update us on how her husband Derek is fighting against the devastating effects of coronavirus. pic.twitter.com/eEw0MQTPio— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) July 8, 2020
Garraway said Draper is still in a coma and “sort of can’t wake up”.
She said: “It’s a strange word, ‘coma’ – he was induced into the coma because it was a way of resting the lungs when he had very acute COVID. Of course, now they’re no longer keeping him in the coma, he sort of can’t wake up.
“There’s two types of coma – there’s the one we think of as vegetative coma, where someone’s completely unconscious, you know, you could stab them and they wouldn’t react – and there’s where Derek is, which is a minimum state of consciousness.
“So, wonderfully, his eyes are opening but we have no real knowledge of what he can see or hear and feel.”
And the former Strictly Come Dancing contestant also revealed she had had a phone call from Sir Elton John offering his help.
She said: “Elton John contacted me. He got in touch, he said, ‘Hi Kate, It’s Elton’.
“I was like, ‘Elton…’ I think we do have a mutual friend. He was like, ‘What can I do to help?’ He said, ‘I’m on board.’
“He’s incredible. I put the phone down, and I’m like, ‘That was Elton John…’ I said, ‘I think he’s going to help!’”
Garraway said that while her husband is still alive she still has hope, but doctors have no idea how long he will remain in his current state.
She said: “He’s absolutely fighting… he has an absolute will and if it’s about will to get back to see Darcey and Billy and me…
“We'll never give up and I know the NHS will never give up."
