Kate Garraway’s book about husband Derek Draper’s battle with coronavirus, The Power Of Hope, has topped the book charts in its first week of sale.
The memoir, which details the life and death struggle Derek went through after contracting coronavirus in March 2020 has sold 22,394 copies since it was released on Thursday.
The Good Morning Britain presenter, 54, has kept fans up to date with Derek’s year-long stay in hospital on social media and through interviews, but fans were nonetheless keen for an in-depth insight into the family’s ordeal.
The Power Of Hope has not only topped the UK Official Top 50 book chart but has also entered Amazon’s Most Sold: Non-Fiction chart, dethroning Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet from the top spot.
In the book, Kate revealed that Derek’s symptoms were initially misdiagnosed as sinusitis as he didn’t have a temperature which was deemed to be one of the signifiers of Covid-19.
He was rushed to hospital on the advice of GMB medic Dr Hilary Jones and was put into an induced coma to help his body recover after his condition continued to worsen.
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While Derek has since been discharged from hospital, he still requires round the clock care after he virus ravaged his body, leaving him with holes in his heart and with diabetes, which he didn’t have before.
He is one of the sickest patients to have survived the pandemic and was even put on an ECMO machine, which oxygenates the blood by bypassing the heart and lungs.
She revealed in The Power Of Hope that he also had a rare brain inflammation, writing: ‘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 [a machine which oxygenates the blood].’
Doctors told her at the time: ‘We can’t rule out some kind of recovery, but we can’t rule out him never recovering.’
Kate also revealed that Derek’s recovery would slow down in the periods of lockdown where she was not allowed to visit him in hospital, but is hoping that the mental stimulation of being at home and around his family will help his recovery.
She was overjoyed when he remembered her birthday this week after she mentioned to him the night before that is was coming up, as well as snippets of conversation including asking her whether the dress she was wearing to work was new.
Kate Garraway: The Power of Hope is out now.
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