Photo: CTV

Tim Michalchuk has completed his journey of a million steps.

Michalchuk, who's from Bella Coola, began walking from Prince George to Vancouver on April 2 in an effort to raise money for his spouse's expensive stem cell treatment. 

Shannon Dixon has multiple sclerosis, in which the insulating covers of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord are damaged. As the disease progresses, it can cause havoc with co-ordination, double vision and muscle weakness as well as other symptoms. There is no known cure.

He walked through the Okanagan on his pilgrimage and was easy to spot in a bright red T-shirt with the slogan "A million steps to stop MS."

“I have no feeling in the left side of my body or my right leg,” Dickson told CTV News. “When I’m overtired or I push myself too far, I develop a head tick.”

“She was always so full of life, and to see that dimmed in anyway is heartbreaking,” Michalchuk added. “The stem cells should actually repair some of the nerves, and get her back on her feet where she was before. We want to rewind the clock a little bit and hopefully hold it there as long as we can.”

Michalchuk left three older stepkids at home to take care of his wife and their two little children, aged four and seven, while he completed his month-long fundraising walk.

​“I'd go to the end of the world and back if it meant helping this woman,” he said during a stop in April while he was travelling through the Okanagan. “But isn't that what we're supposed to do?” 

Michalchuk said he’s “almost a bit sad” that the walk is now over.

His shins are black and blue from bruising and he's got blisters on his feet, "but he's done this for me,” Dickson said. 

Michalchuk’s long walk may have ended, but a new journey has begun.

In front of a crowd that included his children and grandparents, Michalchuk got down on one knee and proposed to the love of this life. 

“I need you to do me a favour,” he said, pulling out a ring. “Tell me you’ll marry me?”

“Of I course I will, in a heartbeat,” said Dickson, embracing her future husband.

– with files from CTV Vancouver