Boy With Cruel Illness Receives Incredible Birthday Wish

Thousands of cards mailed to Danny Nickerson who suffers from an inoperable brain tumor

July is not one of the typically busy months at the Foxboro Post Office.

With more than 100,000 pieces of mail and packages, this week has been an incredible exception.

"It's like Christmas in July here for us. This would be something we'd be dealing with around Christmas time for this sort of volume," said Foxboro Postmaster Tom Driscoll.

Stop to think about that statement for a minute. Like Christmas in July, he said.

A time when the digging deep, card writing and gift giving aren't usually in full swing.

But the world woke up, when Danny Nickerson, a little boy with a cruel illness made a simple request of cards for his 6th birthday.

"To get cards and packages from all over the world from people who don't know our family, who don't know the history of this little boy is amazing. It shows that there's a lot of love in this country and love in this world," said Danny's Uncle Marcus Moore.

You don't need to see the hulk hands to know that a little boy wading through an international sea of packages and cards on his birthday is incredible.

Family members needed uhauls and postal trucks just to get the thousands of gifts out and extra storage units to put them in.

"Danny got more mail yesterday than the entire town of Foxboro combined, by himself," Driscoll said.

Danny is the only one in town with Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma, DIPG, an inoperable tumor on his brain stem.

Still he's clearly not by himself, with family to support him and thousands of extra hands from Kentucky to Hawaii, Texas to Australia.

"Yesterday, I picked up a card from India and I started to cry. I cried because of two things: one because of Danny, obviously, and two because someone from India who has no idea who this little boy is, took the time to draw him a nice hand written card," Moore said.

Hulk Hands or Superman gun notwithstanding, for a 6-year-old boy, what's really the best part of opening all of these packages?

For the rest of us, that's easy.  It's seeing the smile on Danny's face.

This is all quite overwhelming for Danny and his parents.

Tomorrow, he has two big birthday parties: the first at Gillette Stadium. The second is a family party at home.

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