Kate Garraway had agonising near-heart attack just before she was to present GMB
Kate Garraway has revealed she suffered her own traumatising health ordeal last year while caring for her husband.
Derek Draper was struck down with Covid in March 2020 and has needed round the clock care ever since. Kate has opened up about his ongoing struggles in a new interview, in which she also spoke of a terrifying near heart attack she suffered in November. After waking up at 2am unable to move her arm, she vomited on her bedroom floor and began experiencing severe chest pains. However she still allowed herself to be driven to the Good Morning Britain studio and prepared to go on air as usual despite her severe symptoms that were only getting worse.
Kate with husband Derek and their children
Kate was minutes away from going on air when she was rushed to hospital (ITV)It took a phone call from the show's own Dr Hilary Jones to get her to take it seriously, with the famous GP ordering her to be taken straight to hospital. Kate protested "I'll never get back in time to present the show," to which her editor replied: "You're not going to do the show." She told the Sunday Times she collapsed in A&E and was immediately given an ECG and urgent tests, which detected proteins indicative of a heart attack in her blood. A cardiologist told her she wasn't "having a heart attack right now" but that there was definitely a problem. When she returned 12 hours later she was told she didn't seem "strong enough" to undergo stressor tests to find out more.
The incident came after two and a half years of constant worry for her husband, with Kate remarking she is a "shell of a person". The couple both contracted Covid early in the pandemic, but while Kate's case was mild, Derek had to be hospitalised and placed in a coma. The virus ravaged Derek's body from top to bottom, causing brain inflammation, kidney failure, damage to his liver and pancreas and his heart to stop several time. He lost eight stone and was left with holes in his lungs from repeat infections.
Kate has been open about her family's struggles in recent years (ITV)"The very worst moment was when they said he could be locked in for ever," she told The Times at the time. "And I just thought, this is a horror story. I don't know if he'll ever have any kind of life again. We just don't know." Determined to find a way through, Kate would play Derek's favourite music down the phone and when he finally regained consciousness in July, she and the children saw him for the first time in four months. His ventilator was removed that October, but his first word was 'pain'.
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It would be another six months before he was deemed well enough to return to their north London home, which Kate spent thousands adapting. She installed a wheelchair ramp and converted the garage into a ground floor wet room. She also created a bedroom for Derek and his medical equipment and told how he would need 24-hour care.
Kate has written about her family's ordeal in a new book The Strength of Love: Embracing an Uncertain Future with Resilience and Optimism, which will be published on Thursday.
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