kate garraway derek draper family heathrow airport© Photo: Getty Images

Kate Garraway shares heartbreaking texts from husband Derek Draper

Derek was placed into an induced coma last year

Online News Writer & Diversity and Inclusion Lead
April 25, 2021

After a torrid 2020, Kate Garraway has been seeing better days as her husband Derek Draper returned home to continue his recovery.

MORE: Finding Derek: 10 things we learned from Kate Garraway's heartbreaking documentary

The television star's husband was placed into an induced coma last year as his blood oxygen levels severely dropped after he contracted COVID-19.

Kate is currently in the process of releasing her memoir, The Power of Hope, and part of it has been serialised in the Mail on Sunday.

WATCH: Kate Garraway reveals kids' reaction to Derek's return home

And the serialisation reveals some heartbreaking texts and conversations that Kate and her husband had together during his health battle.

After initially thinking that Derek was suffering from sinusitis, Derek's condition got worse and Kate called an ambulance out. She was later able to see her husband in an A&E ward, where he began discussing his funeral with her.

"Then he started to talk about a funeral – it took me a minute to realise he was talking about his own," she wrote. "'I want you at the funeral,' he said, his voice very weak, 'but I'm not sure about the children."

Kate and Derek wed in 2005

Although Kate gave her husband words of encouragement that he would recover, he asked her to "send love" to their children, Billy and Darcey and "not to tell them" about the condition that she had seen him in.

MORE: Kate Garraway returns to the radio waves after husband Derek Draper leaves hospital

MORE: Kate Garraway reveals real reason husband Derek Draper is at home

Kate and her husband exchanged heartbreaking texts over the coming days, some privately as he didn't want their children to know the extent of his condition.

"OK, not for the kids," he said in one. "I've been playing down how really awful it is. It is second after second of being locked in a mask thinking every second you're going to die."

Referring to the induced coma he was due to be put in, he told Kate: "I think they now might want to put me to sleep." He added that he wanted to be "unconscious" saying being unable to breathe on his own was "mental torture."

© Photo: Getty Images

Derek recently returned home to aid his recovery

Kate also revealed that her children were unable to speak to their father before he was put into the induced coma, though she was able to share some loving words with him.

MORE: Derek Draper burst into tears after being reunited with kids and Kate Garraway at home

She also called him twice a day to tell him about the future they'd have together with their children, hoping it would "encourage him to survive".

Derek has recently returned home from hospital to continue his recovery, and on Thursday's edition of Good Morning Britain, Kate had some amazing news to share.

Kate is releasing her new memoirs

She said: "It's been wonderful having Derek at home - and lots of little positives, I think. And 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 [to hospital] before and we were on Facetime and stuff, I don't know. But it feels positive, so little moments of reaction."

The TV star continued: "And he actually said something the other day. I walked in the other morning just before I left to go to Smooth [radio] and I said, 'I'm off to Smooth now,' and he said, 'New dress?' which was just amazing. And it was, actually!

"And I thought that was amazing on so many levels because he recognised it, second, he realised to remember that I need a lot of flattery," Kate added, laughing.

"So there was some emotional connection there and some basis of what our relationship has always been based on. And it was just a little moment..."

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