TOMS RIVER – Danielle E. Cicora never wanted her illness to define her. For more than half her life, the Toms River resident lived with Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy, a rare and debilitating nervous system disorder that left her on crutches at times, in a wheelchair at others, and occasionally unable to tolerate even the touch of fabric on her skin.
But if you asked Danielle who she was, she wouldn’t have started with the diagnosis. She would have started with the puppies.
Born November 10, 1989, Danielle passed away January 20, 2026, at age 36. She is survived by her mother, Sandy Cicora, her father, Mike, her brother, Michael, her significant other, Sean Tomesco and five devoted “furbabies” – Serenity, Minty, Stewie, Emmett and Akela.
To the volunteers at All Fur One Pet Rescue in Toms River, Danielle was more than a foster mom. She was a force.
“If you ever saw a foster mom carrying a literal sea of puppies with her bright red hair flowing, you likely knew Danielle,” the rescue wrote in a tribute following her death. “She was a firecracker… funny, smart, and radiating a beautiful energy that could fill any room.”
But behind the vibrant hair colors and easy smile was a woman who quietly fought battles most never saw.
A Purpose Found
Danielle had once been a gymnast. A fall and subsequent knee injury at 19 marked the beginning of a very different journey, one filled with specialists and years of chronic pain.
“She always said, ‘I never want this disease to define who I am,’” her mother recalled. “I’m not a person with RSD. I’m me. I just happen to have that.”
There were stretches when she couldn’t walk without assistance. Months when even a blanket brushing her legs was unbearable. Her family rigged bars across her bed so the blankets wouldn’t touch her skin.
Still, when transport night came and a litter of puppies needed a safe place to land, Danielle’s response was always the same: “I’ll take them.”
She began volunteering at All Fur One about five years ago. At first, she helped around the rescue. Then came her first foster, a small fluffy dog named Furby. Three days later, he was adopted.
Soon, one puppy turned into litters. Litters of three. Litters of six. One unforgettable litter of ten.
Over the years, Danielle fostered well over 100 puppies. “She never looked at it as work,” Sandy said. “She said, ‘These are living things that can’t fight for themselves, so I have to fight for them.’”
Mint’s Story – And Hers
One litter in particular changed everything.
The “Candy Land” litter, named for board game characters, included six puppies. All six contracted parvovirus. Five responded to treatment.
Mint did not. “He’s not going to make it,” the rescue founder warned.
Danielle refused to accept that. She learned how to administer subcutaneous fluids. She slept on the floor in the foster room for nights, listening for the faintest cry.
One morning, Mint lifted his head and wagged his tail. That was the moment Danielle knew she had found her calling.
Mint became her “foster fail,” the puppy she couldn’t let go. He grew into her emotional support dog, rarely leaving her side, especially during lengthy IVIG treatments at home. If the treatment lasted six hours, Mint stayed six hours. If nine, he stayed nine.
“He gave back to her a millionfold,” Sandy said.
After Mint, Danielle began volunteering for the hardest cases – parvo puppies, sick litters, those other fosters felt unequipped to manage. She would switch assignments if another litter fell ill. She went to fellow volunteers’ homes to help treat puppies.
She understood suffering. “As sick as she was,” her mother said, “she’d say, ‘Mom, I know what they’re going through. I live it every day.”
The Letting Go
Fostering means goodbye. Sometimes after three days. Sometimes after nine months.
Was it hard?
“Of course I’m going to miss them,” Danielle would say. “But there’s more that need me.”
At her funeral and viewing, families arrived with dogs she had once cradled in her arms. “She reached out to see how my pups were doing,” one adopter shared. Another wrote, “They were so loved and well cared for.”
According to the rescue’s founder, it’s rare for adopters to remember the name of the foster. With Danielle, they did.
The Ones She Couldn’t Let Go
Among the hundreds she fostered from All Fur One, four remained. Mint, Stewie from the “Dinosaur” litter, Emmett from the “Airline” litter, and Akela, the two-pound runt she refused to let be bullied. And then there was Serenity, the 11-year-old rescue who predated All Fur One but anchored Danielle’s world.
Mint and Serenity still search for her. Mint walks through the house crying, sniffing her bed. Serenity has become quiet, watchful. “When you hug one of the dogs,” Sandy said, “it feels like you’re hugging her.”
The Pit Crew
Danielle didn’t do it alone.
Her mother described herself and Sean as Danielle’s “pit crew.” On bad health days, they cleaned pens, administered medicine, loaded cars for adoption events. If Danielle couldn’t attend, Sandy brought the puppies, often unaware that her daughter had texted other volunteers ahead of time: Please make sure my mom’s okay.
Sean, 44, met Danielle a year ago. She told her mother he was the love of her life, the first man who truly understood her limitations without seeing them as burdens.
“She said, ‘No one’s ever taken care of me the way he does,’” Sandy recalled.
Sean embraced the puppies as readily as Danielle. Recently, while working, he recognized a dog that looked like Emmett, only to discover it was Emmett’s sibling. The owner remembered Danielle instantly.
A Legacy In Motion
Danielle once feared she had no purpose because she couldn’t work. Fostering changed that. “It turned her world around,” Sandy said.
Today, her mother has become an adoption coordinator with All Fur One. Sean stands beside her. They are considering fostering again in time. Because that is what Danielle would have wanted.
In its tribute, the rescue imagined her at the Rainbow Bridge, greeted by her beloved Makota and a joyful, wagging crowd of every puppy she ever saved.
They called her “a hero to the voiceless.”
Somewhere, in homes across New Jersey and beyond, more than 100 dogs are safe, loved and alive because Danielle E. Cicora decided her disease would not be her story.
The puppies were.
