At the tender age of seven, it’s not hard to see Vinny Desautels’ altruistic nature. He devoted the past two years of his life to growing his hair out to an impressive 13 inches so that he could donate it to Wigs for Kids with Cancer, in spite of the jeers and taunts he received from classmates. Now, in a cruel twist of fate, Vinny has found himself in the same place as the people he was trying to help. He was given a stage 4 cancer diagnosis only weeks after chopping off his locks.

When Vinny came home from school one day complaining about pain in his knee earlier this month, his parents, Jason Desautels and Amanda Azevedo, decided to take him to the emergency room. Soon his parents noticed a large growth on his right hip and that his right eye had started to puff up. Doctors ordered a full set of blood tests, MRIs, and a CT scan that revealed tumors on his hip and the bone around his eye, CNN reported.

Although the family is still waiting on the official diagnosis from his doctors, they have been told it is most likely Ewing’s sarcoma, a type of tumor that forms in bones and soft tissue. The American Cancer Society estimates that these make up 1 percent of childhood tumors and around 225 children and teens are diagnosed with it in North America each year. Survival rates often depend on the age of the patient and size of the tumor.

Paying for all of Vinny’s medical bills has been hard for his mother, who is six months pregnant, and father, who is a combat veteran. Desautels currently works for a small hardware business that allows him flexible hours so he can be with his son for his bone marrow biopsy and radiation treatments, which Azevedo can’t attend because she’s pregnant. Did I mention Vinny has a 12-year-old brother his parents also have to care for?

Vinny’s grandparents have set up a GoFundMe page to help finance his medical bills and ease the family through this incredibly difficult process.