Kate Garraway reveals Derek Draper had rare brain inflammation from Covid

Derek Draper had a rare brain inflammation triggered by coronavirus that doctors had never seen before, his wife Kate Garraway has revealed.

Lobbyist Derek, 53, spent more than a year in intensive care – with doctors claiming he was the most seriously-sick patient to have survived the virus.

Now, his Good Morning Britain star wife Kate has revealed details of his Covid battle in her new memoir The Power Of Hope.

Doctors were concerned about parts of Derek’s brain scans which looked like ‘fluffy white clouds floating in the top part of his head’, she wrote.

The areas signified inflammation on the brain and were seen as early as April, when Derek was first put on ECMO – a machine which oxygenates the blood.

Doctors told Kate this meant the ‘clouds’ weren’t clots or brain bleeds caused by the machine, Metro reports.

An extract reads: ‘This, they told me, was a unique historical event, a one-off splurge of inflammation, and the fact that it showed up in some form on the earlier CT scans from back in April meant it happened right at the start when Derek was first on ECMO.’ 

At the time, doctors had never seen brain inflammation caused by Covid. 

But they said it was a good thing that the infection hadn’t spread to the spinal cord or brain stem as this could have affected his movement.

Because the brain takes a long time to recover, doctors warned her: ‘We can’t rule out some kind of recovery, but we can’t rule out him never recovering.’

Another extract earlier this week reveals the heart-breaking text messages that Derek sent her before he was put into an induced coma.

In her new memoir she tells in raw detail about Derek’s ordeal and pays tribute to ‘the brilliant team of doctors and specialists’ who’ve looked after him and how what they’ve learnt has helped the treatment of others.

She describes how the toughest experience of her life began in March last year when Derek, then 52, was taken to hospital with very low oxygen levels.

As he was lifted into an ambulance, Kate said he told her: ‘This is not the last time you will see me. It isn’t.’ But she admits ‘he would never have said that if at least a small part of him hadn’t been wondering if it was.’

During the rollercoaster next few days, Kate truly feared her political lobbyist-turned-psychotherapist husband was going to die.

In one phone call, he told her: ‘I want you at the funeral.’

Kate’s book, The Power Of Hope, includes examples of her husband’s texts from hospital.

She writes: ‘His messages became more and more desperate. They were heart-breaking to read.’

After more 373 days in hospital, Derek was allowed home earlier this month. 

He has not regained his speech and remains seriously ill. Doctors say he was the most seriously sick patient to have survived the virus.