Vinny DiGeralamo has undergone multiple surgeries over the last four years for the cleft palate and heart defect he was born with.
KERNERSVILLE -- Community members and local merchants are coming together to help a 4-year-old Kernersville boy who's suffering from a number of serious health problems.
Vinny DiGeralamo has undergone multiple surgeries over the last four years for the cleft palate and heart defect he was born with. But now his family has been dealt another blow: Vinny has a rare form of cancer.
“We just though it was another cleft-related incident that could be taken care of with another flap surgery and now it's a rare childhood cancer,” Sarah DiGeralamo, Vinny’s mom said.
You wouldn't know by watching the rambunctious 4-year-old play that he's spent his entire life going in and out of hospitals. And for the last few weeks getting dose after dose of chemotherapy and radiation, “Radiation starts at 8 a.m., sometimes it takes an hour, sometimes were there for several hours depending on blood counts and if he needs a blood transfusion,” DiGeralamo said.
But both Vinny and his family are staying positive, “When I tell him all this medication and doctors are going to help take the cancer out,” DiGeralamo said, “he says ‘no momma I take my cancer out,’ he says ‘take that, take that’ and tries to throw it out of his own head.”
Community members and local merchants are coming together to help a 4-year-old Kernersville boy who's suffering from a number of serious health problems.
And while the family says they're more fortunate than others in similar situations, members of the Kernersville Merchants Association want to make sure that continues. “It dawned on me that I would want somebody to step in a help me out if I was so overwhelmed with this. And he has a 7-year-old sister and they have no family in the state of North Carolina and I guess I am a nurturer, a caregiver,” K.C. Grieser, owner of Paperback Exchange in Kernersville said.
Grieser along with the other merchants are holding raffles and hair cut-a-thons, while the family's church is giving free babysitting, and bringing dinners twice a week.
“And it's just human kindness, it's past financial help these days for this family, they just need a hand,” Grieser said.
“It's amazing that the people we don't even know have come forward and their offering everything,” DiGeralamo said.
People are still giving cash donations, family and friends set up a website for the DiGeralamos. Or the next time you're in Kernersville the family invites you to stop by their restaurant, "Charlie’s Place."