Luca Ellcessor, a freshman at the University of Colorado Boulder, is using his wish from the Make-A-Wish Foundation to help cover his tuition, after he recently won a battle with brain cancer.

The money will cover part of his first year of tuition, helping him pursue his dream of studying astronomy and physics. Ellcessor said “it’s freeing” to pursue his passion now, after he thought he was going to die just a few years ago.

“I have my whole future ahead of me, and I also don’t want to waste the time I have anymore,” Ellcessor said. “I mean, I never wanted to waste the time I had, but I now realize how valuable it is, because I don’t know what could happen to me in the future.”

He started getting headaches in the fall of 2020 as a freshman at Littleton High School. As the fall semester went on, the headaches got worse. For six months his healthcare providers thought the headaches were the result of a mild concussion he had, after he tripped and hit his head. In January 2021, doctors did an MRI and found a mass in his brain. He was immediately referred to Children’s Hospital Colorado at the CU Anschutz Medical Campus. The tumor was diagnosed as low-grade pilocytic astrocytoma in February 2021.

“It was really scary the whole time,” Ellcessor said.

Originally, doctors were going to monitor the tumor, but his vision started to deteriorate, and the tumor continued to grow. So, doctors decided to do six rounds of chemotherapy from April through November 2021. When that didn’t work, Ellcessor had an eight-hour brain surgery in February 2022 to remove the tumor, which resulted in a 40-day hospital stay.“I remember waking up in the hospital bed not able to move,” Ellcessor said. He had to re-learn how to walk.

Because of how deep-seated the tumor was, the recovery was longer and harder than expected. Elena Ellcessor, his mom, said her son had the symptoms of a brain injury, including memory loss, confusion, balance issues and mental fatigue. He couldn’t return to school until his junior year and started on a reduced class load. His vision has stabilized, but he remains legally blind in his left eye.

“It was terrifying. It was really hard, and we were lucky,” Elena Ellcessor said, adding, “I don’t think any of us were prepared for how hard his recovery was.”

Now, she’s feeling optimistic and excited for him as he starts college at CU Boulder.

“His life was definitely derailed by his cancer, but he’s back to doing what he loves, which is learning and studying astronomy,” she said.

Luca Ellcessor fell in love with science at a young age. He is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in astronomy with a physics focus. He wants to obtain a master’s degree in astrophysics and some day conduct research as a career or become a research professor.

He is fascinated by everything in space and described his excitement when learning about vectors and vector addition in one of his classes.

“I’ve always had a love for science and learning, really, about the world and how the world works,” he said.

Angie Zerr was Luca Ellcessor’s high school counselor and helped support him through treatment.

“Education is really important to him, and I think that for him to choose to use (his wish) toward his education is just really inspirational and knowing he really just wants to better himself as a person,” Zerr said.

Zerr said he was always hopeful and would never get mad at anyone despite his situation.

“He’s always been a really kind, caring, giving person, but I think this opened up another level of that for him, and he wants to do the right thing and be there for other people,” she said.

Elena Ellcessor said he always cared for others, but she’s seen that empathy grow even more.

“He was always a high empathy kid, but now that’s next level in terms of he’s always embraced people from different backgrounds but now I think he has a fuller understanding even of neurodiversity, which I don’t think is something he was thinking about when he was 15 years old,” she said.

Because of his vision impairments, Luca Ellcessor uses a vision aid and auditory formats for reading. It takes him more time than the average person to complete assignments.

“I am differently abled now, I can’t do the same things I used to do,” he said. “My vision is pretty crappy, that’s why I have this CCTV camera that lets me see stuff and read the board. But my love for science and math is still here, and I can do it even with my screwed-up vision and brain. Well, my brain isn’t screwed up, but differently abled now.”

Luca Ellcessor said he also feels like he has become a new person in the last two years. He has a good group of friends who helped him through recovery in high school and has already met new friends at CU Boulder. He enjoyed hiking and being active before and after his tumor. He said he now is especially enjoying swimming and cycling to release stress and stay fit.

Now, Luca Ellcessor said he is hopeful about the future. At 18 years old, this fall is the first time he’ll be able to vote.

“I’m just so excited. I felt like Boulder, CU, is my home because I’ve met so many great people here,” he said. “This is a place for me to really learn a lot, and it’s exactly what I want.”