When Nick was 10 years old, he was playing a winking game with his dad. “I remember asking him, ‘Why do I see better out of my right eye than my left eye?’” Nick says. “As a kid, you kick [better] with your right foot or your left foot, and I just thought that I was right-eyed.”

The question prompted Nick’s parents to take him to an eye doctor, who found that his left retina was nearly white from lack of blood. Nick then met with experts at Stanford, where he was diagnosed with a craniopharyngioma, a benign golf ball-sized brain tumor growing around his pituitary gland and the optic chiasm, which plays a key role in eyesight.

“That was a surprise,” Nick understates. He underwent two brain surgeries, including a craniotomy that left him with 24 staples and a divot on the side of his head, which made him the target of unwanted comments. “I remember a lot of people staring,” he says. “There were plenty of people who would make fun of me for one reason or another.”

In the midst of his struggles, however, a bright spot emerged. Nick’s parents told him that Make-A-Wish Greater Bay Area would be granting him a wish.

“I was going to be interviewed and was trying to come up with what I wanted,” he says. After mulling it over—and getting an earful from his friends, who were lobbying for a Neo Geo arcade game—Nick decided on a computer. It was 1991, and just 15 percent of households had a home computer at that time.

Now, three decades later, he still remembers the anticipation. “There was something hopeful,” he says. “There was something exciting coming. There was something to look forward to, something to distract me from tests and needle jabs.”

On the big day, Nick's parents drove him to a computer shop in Watsonville. One of the chapter's founding volunteers, Pat Probert—known as the Fairy Godmother—was waiting there to celebrate Nick's wish. She had created a big congratulations banner, which Nick has kept all these years.

“It was cool,” he says. “They had a computer desk set up that had a monitor on top with a keyboard and mouse and a computer sitting next to it. They included an HP DeskJet printer, and the guy who worked there showed me how to use some of the software that was included and some of the games.”

Pat and Nick would stay in touch and, 25 years later, Nick spoke about Pat's impact on him and other wish kids when Pat received an award for most wishes granted.

Nick says that first computer helped provide the grounding for his future career. Today, the San Jose resident works as an environmental artist, helping to design video games. In fact, the longtime Star Trek fan has built visual sets for the role-playing game Star Trek Online.

In his spare time, Nick is now the one bringing joy to wish kids as a wish granting volunteer with Make-A-Wish Greater Bay Area. “I was thinking about my wish and thought it’d be cool to see it from the other side of things,” he says.

He’s helped grant many wishes over the years, including one for a young woman who wanted to visit the set of the TV show, The Walking Dead. “It happened to get granted just before Halloween, and we were able to do the wish reveal at the Great America haunted house,” he says. “We got her mom to take her and her brother—thinking they were just going to the haunted house—and then they got swarmed by zombies who then revealed a big banner saying she got her wish.”

During his initial interview with another young woman, she mentioned how much she enjoyed going to the mall with her friends. “Not trying to influence, I offered that we could do a shopping spree, and her eyes lit up,” he remembers. “It had never occurred to her that that could be something she could wish for. It’s very exciting to see when they’re excited and to help facilitate that.”

Nick says it’s fun when kids come up with a wish that’s unexpected, although he admits that one little girl caught him off-guard with a beyond-her-years idea. “I had a four-year-old girl whose wish was to see [the alternative rock band] Barenaked Ladies,” he remembers. “In the end, her wish changed, and she ended up going to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, which was really cool.”

Nick just received his recognition pin for being a Make-A-Wish volunteer for 10 years. He finds his volunteer work meaningful and says the milestone snuck up on him. “It’s really all about the interactions,” he says, “and being able to bring that joy, that excitement, to somebody else.”