In an emotional chat with Channel Seven’s Sunday Night program, the 62-year-old told reporter Mike Willesee her soul mate still has a long way to go in the recovery process.
‘This is a man in pain. He can’t eat. He’s being fed by a tube. He can’t speak. He can’t breathe,” Kerri-Anne said of her husband, who suffered extensive injuries when he fell over a garden hedge while taking photos at a gold resort near Coffs Harbour last month.
The stoic star went on to explain: “It’ll be a year before you know what he’ll be left with, and we don’t know, I’d love to be wrong, but I think it would be a miracle.”
“He’s trapped in his mind, he’s trapped in his body. He can’t touch me. All I can do is ever so gently hold his head and one shoulder and kiss him.”
75-year-old John, who fractured his C3 and C4 vertebrae and has been diagnosed as in incomplete quadriplegic, is still breathing through a ventilator and cannot walk.
However the British-born businessman can mouth words to his wife.
Watch Kerri-Anne chat to John in the player below. Post continues after the video.
Wiping away tears, the former Good Morning Australia host pleaded: “I want our life back!”
“I just wake up everyday thinking ‘what a nightmare that was!’ But it’s not a nightmare, it’s life. I didn’t want to get out of bed.”
“A whole chunk of me just doesn’t exist anymore. There’s, just a whole, big chunk that he used to fill,” she cried.
“It’s like I’m inside my head screaming that it’s not real, but it is. I can’t be anything but strong for him, because this is a man in pain.”
“A whole chunk of me just doesn’t exist anymore,” Kerri-Anne said.
But Kerri-Anne knows nothing but resilience, having battled some of life’s biggest challenges with her husband of over three decades right by her side.
“As exhausting as it is going to the hospital and spending hours and hours there every day, I get very antsy and excited when I go in there because I really look forward to seeing him,” she explained.
“It is a battle. But I want him back so bad… I want him, to actually be as happy and have the creativity that he’s always loved and enjoyed.”
Reflecting on the night their lives changed forever, the star confessed she was told to say her goodbyes to John.
Since the accident in March, the television star has not left her husband’s side.
“The doctor came out and said ‘look, we do this all the time but, you know why, don’t you just go and have a few words to him. Say goodbye’ is what he said.”
Shortly after the interview aired on Sunday evening, Kerri-Anne took to Instagram to thank everyone for their support.
“I would to take this opportunity to thank everybody at the Royal North Shore Hospital who have looked after John. Their dedication to the work they do is extraordinary. We are grateful beyond words,” she penned alongside a beautiful photo of her and John.
John cannot walk or talk but is able to mouth words.
