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A 7-year-old California boy who has donated his hair to cancer patients was himself diagnosed with cancer, his parents said Sunday.
Doctors said Vinny Desautels has “Stage IV aggressive cancer” in growths on a hip, an eye, his nose and his right cheek, his father Jason told KTXL-TV.
Vinny, who lives with his family in Roseville in the Sacramento area, described his cancer and his efforts over the past two years to help make wigs for people who have lost their hair while undergoing treatment.
The parents of 7-year-old California boy Vinny Desautels told a local TV doctors diagnosed him with "aggressive Stage IV cancer."
“Well, the veins from my hip are traveling to another place right behind my eye and it's making it squinty,” he told the TV station. “I want to help people so they don't have to go to the doctors to fight cancer."
Surgeons at a Sacramento hospital performed a bone marrow biopsy on Vinny Tuesday, and they’re waiting on pathology tests to identify his cancer and begin treatments, according to a GoFundMe page started by Vinny’s grandparents. The page had drawn over $357,000 from more than 8,000 donations Tuesday night.
Vinny has donated his own hair for cancer patients for years before his own diagnosis.
“Praying for this sweet selfless boy!” one person wrote on the page. “Please God take this away from sweet Vinny.”
Doctors classify cancer that has spread to distant parts of the body as Stage IV, the highest such level, according to the National Cancer Institute. Vinny’s mother Amanda Azevedo told the TV station her son is a fighter.
Vinny's grandparents posted this picture of Vinny and his father Jason Desautels on the family's GoFundMe page Tuesday.
“As long as we are doing this as a family, we got this,” Azevedo said.
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