Kate Garraway has revealed the heartbreaking final texts her husband Derek Draper sent her before he was induced into a coma.
Good Morning Britain host Kate's husband Derek fell ill with Covid-19 in March last year, following the announcement of the first lockdown. He remained in intensive care for over a year in the end, battling the devastating impact the virus had on his body, and has now finally returned home.
Kate has opened up about his ongoing health battle in her new book, The Power of Hope, and revealed their last few seconds together before he was put into an ambulance.
In the pages of the book, which have been obtained by the Daily Mail and are available to read in the Daily Mail on Sunday, she says Derek insisted that moment wouldn't be the last time they saw each other.
Kate said he told her, "This is not the last time you will see me. It isn't." However, she admits that "he would never have said that if at least a small part of him hadn't been wondering if it was."
But after he left in the ambulance, "texts from the hospital over the first hours were sporadic and confusing, keeping the worst of it from us." Kate says, "I didn't know then that he wasn't starting to get better."
"Can't phone, but all good," another text reads, "Thank you for your lovely notes. Love you all, won't be able to reply."
"Reassuring to be here," Kate reveals another text from Derek said. "Still can't come off the breathing machine for one minute so can't talk. Please bring wax earphones. I will text you the ward name when I get it. They say I am making an improvement."
Writing about his emotional texts from his hospital bed, the I'm A Celebrity star said, "His messages became more and more desperate. They were heart-breaking to read."
Kate feared that Derek, who she has two children with, would die from Covid-19. "Then he started to talk about a funeral – it took me a minute to realise he was talking about his own," she wrote in the extract. "'I want you at the funeral,' he said, his voice very weak, 'but I'm not sure about the children."
At 53-years old, Derek Draper has been one of the worst-affected Covid-19 patients to survive the virus in the whole of the UK.
Discussing his return home on GMB recently, Kate told Susanna Reid and Adil Ray that it's been "wonderful" to have him home and there are "lots of little positives".
She continued, "Whether those are positives because it is genuinely helping his cognition being at home, or whether it's just because I'm there to see the little things whereas I couldn't go in before...I don't know but it feels positive.
"So far, so good."
