Kerri-Anne breaks down over husband's catastrophic injuries

Television queen Kerri-Anne Kennerley says life as she knew it is over, after a freak accident left her husband paralysed.

Kennerley and her husband John were preparing for a photograph on a veranda at a Coffs Harbour golf tournament in March when John lost his balance and fell a short distance, spearheading the ground and breaking his neck.

He remains in intensive care, unable to talk or move, with a machine helping him to breathe.

The future is uncertain, as the couple wait to learn the long-term implications of his devastating injuries.

Kennerley says she wakes up every day thinking it was a nightmare.

She accepts John, who has been by her side for at least 35 years, probably won't make a full recovery.

"My life, as I knew it, is over," she told the Seven Network's Sunday Night.

"That was history. This is now a new life. Because he is my priority.

"A whole chunk of me just doesn't exist anymore," said Kennerley, breaking down in tears. "There's just a whole big chunk that he used to fill."

She explained to interviewer and friend Mike Willesee her struggles to adapt and remain strong at John's side.

"If I don't, when I'm with him, remain strong, it would be so much worse.

"Last week he said to me, he had a terrible dream, he said 'I dreamt you got fed up of all this and left me'."

The most difficult thing, apart from not knowing exactly how John will recover, is not being able to talk to him, she said.

"Watching him be sad, it's like I'm inside my head screaming that it's not real," a teary Kennerley said.

Neurosurgeon Rodney Allan said the chances of someone sustaining an injury like John's, in such a simple fall, were "one in a million".