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Kyle Wicklund had a romantic proposal all planned out. He would ask his girlfriend, Victoria Caetano, to marry him on a New Jersey beach and then hold an engagement party at the nearby restaurant where the couple first met. With their families’ help, he’d come up with an idea to make it a complete surprise for her. And he always knew he wanted to get down on one knee. “I wanted to make it traditional but also picture perfect for her because I know it's something that we're going to remember for the rest of our lives,” Wicklund, 25, tells TODAY.com. But days before the happy moment was supposed to happen in July, he ended up in the hospital with a frightening and unexpected health crisis. Wicklund’s legs suddenly gave out on him while he was at his home in Indianapolis, Indiana, and they became so weak that he couldn’t stand or walk. “It was terrifying,” Caetano, 24, recalls. “It's the person you love and you just want them to be healthy, but it's a really helpless feeling because you really can't do anything.” As the medical mystery unfolded, Wicklund entered physical therapy at Indiana University Health and had a precise goal: He wanted to be able to get down on one knee to propose. It was the first time a patient had ever asked the team for physical therapy specific to kneeling for a marriage proposal. “I thought he was very ambitious,” Maddie Barkow, physical therapist at IU Health, tells TODAY.com. “Kyle was not able to walk yet when he mentioned this goal to me.” He was on a tight deadline as the date set for the surprise proposal was quickly approaching. Love story, then sudden health crisis Wicklund and Caetano met in 2023 when they were both out with friends at a restaurant in their native New Jersey. He works in finance; she wants to become a doctor. They struck up a conversation and spent the rest of the evening talking. He calls her “super brilliant” and the most beautiful girl he’s ever met. She likes that he’s charming, funny and “incredibly handsome.” The couple began dating, and when Wicklund moved to Indianapolis for a job promotion, Caetano followed. Wicklund says he’s always been very healthy, but an unexpected diagnosis set off a cascade of health problems. In the fall of 2024, he started having stomach problems that led doctors to discover a pituitary adenoma — a benign tumor on his pituitary gland at the base of his brain. That tumor disrupted his hormone production and led to a life-threatening lack of cortisol — a hormone that helps break down fats, proteins and carbohydrates in the body — known as an adrenal crisis. Wicklund couldn’t keep down food, vomited for months and lost weight. He also developed enteritis, inflammation of the small intestine. His doctors don’t know for sure, but it’s possible the infection that caused the enteritis may have also spread to his spine, causing inflammation there known as transverse myelitis. But in many cases, the exact cause of transverse myelitis is unknown. The symptoms: sudden weakness in the legs that can lead to paralysis, exactly what Wicklund experienced in early July. “I was in my kitchen and then my legs pretty much just gave out on me. Then I was lying on the floor, and Victoria said, ‘We should probably go to the hospital’ because I couldn't really feel anything,” Wicklund recalls. His surprise proposal was set for July 19, less than two weeks away. Practicing proposal in physical therapy In the hospital, Wicklund told himself he was going to propose on one knee no matter what. “I'm a very driven person,” he says. “Kyle was very determined,” Barkow, the physical therapist, confirms. “It isn’t a conventional goal we typically work on.” Steroids helped treat the transverse myelitis, which led to improvements in his legs. Once Wicklund was able to walk with a rolling walker, Barkow focused the physical therapy sessions on kneeling on one leg and getting back up using his arms on the walker for stability. The plan was for Wicklund to kneel down onto his weaker left leg so that his stronger right side could be in control. Another person was on standby in case he got stuck on the floor. They did multiple repetitions so he’d ready for his big day. “I could probably get down one knee better than I could walk 100 feet, but that's what I wanted to focus on and that's what we practiced,” Wicklund says. "It was for her, but also it was for me as well. ... No matter what gets in my way, I'm going to be able to push through it." Caetano had no idea about this aspect of her boyfriend’s physical therapy, but knew what it was like to lose the use of the legs. She was born with spina bifida and underwent three spinal surgeries, two of which left her temporarily paralyzed as a teen. “I went through my own medical struggles,” Caetano says. “What he was going through was so incredibly difficult and would probably be so traumatizing and depressing for a lot of people. But Kyle never acted that way.” The crisis brought them closer together, the couple says. 'Perfect' moment Wicklund was released from the hospital days before his surprise proposal. He told Caetano they needed to fly to New Jersey for his sister-in-law's baby gender reveal party, but both their families knew he was planning to propose. Caetano was surprised at how intensely he wanted to attend the gender reveal in person so soon after his health problems and advised him to cancel the flight, but he was adamant. Walking toward Sea Bright beach in New Jersey during their trip, Caetano saw Wicklund standing in the sand in a linen suit with a big bouquet of pink peonies. When she ran to him, he got down on one knee and proposed. She said yes, calling it a "truly perfect" moment. “He made it look very effortless, but I know how much strength it took,” Caetano says. “He had the perfect 90-degree knee.” “Getting down was tough,” Wicklund says. “But once I got down on one knee and then proposed to her and she said yes, she kind of grabbed me and helped me get up and hugged me. I had a lot of adrenaline going through so I was OK.” Doctors don't know when Wicklund's legs will be 100% back to normal, but his mobility is getting better and he can walk short distances without a walker. His next goal is to be able to run a 5K. The couple plans to marry in the spring of 2027, perhaps in Brazil, where Caetano’s family is from. This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:
