Kate Garraway is said to be leaning on Richard Madeley for support after her Good Morning Britain return following her husband Derek Draper's health turn.
The presenter, 55, returned to the ITV show last week after taking a three week absence when Derek was rushed to hospital with "life-threatening" sepsis.
Kate is said to have been telling pals how helpful Richard and supportive the GMB team have been as she is prepared to rush off air if Derek's condition worsens.
A source told Closer Magazine : "Kate's been in this situation before and knows the agony of just waiting in a hospital waiting room, and didn't want to put her life on hold knowing that it wouldn't actually help Derek.
"The best thing for her to do was to go back to work, and get on with life so that she can stay strong for Derek and their children, her colleagues feel like family member, and by going back to work she is entering into an incredible support system.
"She's telling friends her co-host Richard has been a great support. The hospital has her mobile number and GMB producers would let Kate rush off mid-air if it came down it."
The insider added Kate has found an "inner strength that she didn't know she had" and is determined to keep the "positive energy going".
Kate's representatives decline to comment when contacted by Mirror Online.
Derek, a former lobbyist, contracted Covid in early 2020, and was left critically ill and hospitalised for more than a year.
He returned home in April 2021 but still requires care and assistance, as he struggles to return to full health, and in recent weeks has had to return to hospital.
Giving an update to viewers on the show upon her return, Kate said: "I dramatically disappeared and haven’t been here for three weeks now.
"We were on air and Derek had come out of hospital, he’s been going in and out of hospital for a while for looking at ways to tackle the damage caused by Covid back in 2020.
"But we haven’t really had any sort of medical eruptions, and then he just was really unwell.
"He’d come out of hospital the day before and (I) got a phone call from the person who was looking after him saying, ‘right, we’re really worried’, so I whizzed home, and it just sort of went ‘boom’ from there."
Derek was taken to hospital where Kate explains they discovered he had "very severe sepsis, life-threatening sepsis".
Sepsis occurs when the body overreacts to an infection and starts to damage the body’s own tissues and organs.
It can be fatal and is famously hard to spot.
Kate said the challenge now was to save Derek's kidneys as he remains in a high dependency unit in hospital.
She added: "The important thing is we’re back on the right side of it now."
