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An Aurora, Colo. mother is facing two felony charges of theft and criminal impersonation after police discovered she was pretending her son had cancer to receive thousands of dollars in donations.

Now, friends of Sandy Nguyen, 28, are revealing just how far her scam went — revelations that uncover the damaging extent of her constant lies, including convincing her own 6-year-old son that he was dying.

“He’s an amazing little kid, and I can’t imagine anybody doing this to a child,” said Jordan Miller, who’s known Nguyen for years.

She said the boy talked about how he didn’t feel well, how his mom said he was sick, and that he was embarrassed he didn’t have hair.

Nguyen claimed that the boy had only eight months to live, and that a month later the cancer was gone, but returned again the next month. Nguyen even told Miller she was pregnant and that the new baby’s cord blood would be used to help save her son.

Miller and her husband Dave were among the families that gave Nguyen several hundred dollars for cancer treatments that included “317 days of chemotherapy, 7 days of radiation, multiple blood & platelet transfusions, monthly spinal taps, biopsies, and MRI’s” to treat his “aggressive, rare, stage 3 childhood bone cancer and Acute Myelogenous Leukemia.”

At one point, Dave Miller even shaved his head in solidarity with the child.

“If it made that little boy feel better about himself for just a minute, that’s all that mattered to me,” Dave said.

The money kept rolling in. According to 9News:

Investigators said the community began collecting money for the boy in September 2013, and that more than $25,000 had been given and placed into an account for use by the Nguyen family.

Nguyen had accepted at least $16,000 from that account over the last several months, according to a sheriff’s office news release. Investigators said Nguyen and her family also went on a trip to Disneyland using donated money. Officials said they found $23,000 in cash in Nguyen’s home.

Upon learning about her friend’s scam and the arrest that followed, Miller became physically ill.

“What kills me the most is not even that we lost money, it’s just how we felt doing these things,” Jordan said. “I feel like this crazy woman just took a part of us and put it in a blender.”

Nguyen was released from jail since posting a $10,000 bond. But even if a trial puts her behind bars, there’s no telling what damage she’s done to her young child.

SOURCE: 9News | PHOTO CREDIT: Screengrab