KATE Garraway returned to Good Morning Britain today after three weeks away and explained that show bosses gave her a “long holiday at home”.
The 53-year-old has been balancing work duties with raising her two children while husband Derek Draper remains in a serious condition in hospital following his coronavirus battle.
The difficult circumstances left Kate feeling run down and she was given time to recharge at home.
“ITV gave me time off as I hadn’t been feeling well,” she explained. “The chickens came home to roost after long year, and I just took some holiday at home. I had a lot of sleep and medicine and feeling much better.”
Kate also revealed her heartache after being unable to see husband Derek since Christmas.
She said: “I haven’t been able to see him since Christmas, we’re back into situation of looking at strangers in masks.
“That’s the situation for everybody at the moment. It’s tough. When you’re someone like him, dealing with a consciousness problem and trying to emerge, I can’t help but fear it’s not helpful. There’s no end in sight to that. There’s no one to blame or be angry with. It’s tough.”
Kate recently said she was struggling to cope being the sole parent to her children.
She opened up about looking after William, 11, and Darcey, 14, while Derek is in hospital.
Derek was hospitalised with coronavirus in March last year and, despite fighting off the disease, is still in intensive care.
Speaking to Good Housekeeping Kate admitted: ““I’m not sure I am coping! I honestly don’t know how single mums do it; it’s just so hard.
“A lot of the time I find myself thinking, ‘What would Derek say?’ and ‘What would Derek do?’”
She added that she was being helped through the parenting side of things by her Good Morning Britain co-star Ranvir Singh.
Kate explained: “I’m lucky that I’m being supported by lots of friends, too, and Ranvir has been really helpful because she’s been operating as a single mum since her son, Tushaan, was very little.
“I asked her, ‘How do you do it?’ and she said, ‘You just have to accept that you can’t do everything.’”
The star also said she had been touched by the kindness of strangers who rallied around her while she battled through the pain of Derek’s condition.
She said: “That’s been one of the positives of this horrible time, and I’ve found it [kindness] in the most unexpected places.
“There’s a lovely lady who lives over the road from me and I didn’t know her before all this, but every week she makes a cake for me and the kids.
“Somehow she always knows when we most need a lift! We’ve really got to know each other because of it, too, and that’s been lovely.”
Kate has been warned by doctors that her husband Derek Draper “may never come out of his coma”, her co-star Piers Morgan revealed.
He told viewers: “We know from our colleague Kate Garraway, whose husband is still in a coma from Covid… He may never come out of that coma.
“She’s been told this, and it’s heartbreaking. It has hit right here on our show.”
