Friends of Tony UpdateSpring 2009 |
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An Ocean Apart, A Mountain of Paperwork Her name is Neciel (pronounced "ne-sel") Talingting. She lives far away on a small island south of Manila in the Philippines. An ocean separates her from her fiancé, a man whom she hasn't yet met in person. But she does see him everyday online. For nearly two years now, Neciel and Tony have kept in touch through the Internet. 
They send each other email, exchange pictures, and with their web cams, they spend a lot of quality time together. They've even gotten to know members of each other's immediate family. If everything goes as planned later this year, Neciel and Tony will be exchanging wedding vows in the United States.
At the end of May, Neciel will be interviewed by the U.S. embassy in Manila. In order for her to come to the U.S. and fulfill her and Tony's dream to be together, she'll need to do well in the interview. There's been a mountain of paperwork that had to be filled out promptly and correctly for Neciel's hopeful immigration to take place. The process has taken a little over a year so far, but it would have been much more difficult and time consuming for Tony and Neciel, had it not been for the help of Mike Tessitore, owner of Olvis Immigration and Travel Service. After a couple of bad experiences with immigration attorneys, Tony was left very frustrated by their lack of commitment. With Olvis' offices in Nevada and in the Philippines, Tony says that no one else could have come close to all the support and personal attention that Mike and his wife, Molly, have provided. Molly's maiden name, by the way, is Olvis, and like Neciel, she is from the same area south of Manila. On one of Mike's recent trips to the Philippines, he met Neciel and reports that she's even prettier in person than in her pictures or her web cam persona. What started out as friendly chat on Yahoo back at the end of the summer two years ago has blossomed into something so much more. Tony's Current Condition 
Due to the chronic pain that Tony often has to endure, each day can be unpredictable for him. There are some days that he can't even get out of bed because the pain is so severe and intolerable. Days can easily stretch into a week, or longer, when the pain is at its worst. According to The Cleveland Clinic Neuroscience Center, chronic pain can persist despite the fact that an injury has healed. Pain signals remain active in the nervous system for weeks, months, or years.
There were a couple of weeks this past April when Tony's only relief to chronic pain was to stay in bed. He ate very little too. When Lloyd and Donna Johnson stopped by to visit on Easter Sunday, Tony wasn't able to spend much time with his guests or join them for dinner with his parents. He was in bed with the heat in his room turned on high. One thing is clear. Tony needs to find an effective pain management plan, something that may combine different methods of treatment for maximum pain relief. To read more about Tony's condition, check out the FAQ page. Acknowledgements to Friends of Tony If you haven't checked out the friends page recently, you'll see that many of the names have hyperlinks and some have small thumbnail pictures associated with them. The links will take you to people featured on Tony's website, either in pictures, news items or in stories from current and past Updates. Other special pages featuring friends of Tony include the following:
Previous Friends-of-Tony Updates You can read previous FriendsOfTony Updates by clicking on the links below.
More Friends of Tony A few more names have been added to the friends page and to the Friends-of-Tony Update email list. These new and old friends are:
Thank you, Steve Albanese FriendsOfTony.com Calendar |
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March 2009
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April 2009
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May 2009
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June 2009
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