Support Tony's Fight Against Rare Cancer

Most of you know Tony as an avid hockey and soccer lover. His love for these sports is so extensive he even spends his free time coaching. Tony is a man who values the art of cooking, especially for events and his family. A man you can find relaxing on his patio outside or vacationing to see family in the Carolinas. Tony is also a devoted and loyal employee, working his entire career at Mag Jewelry. His hard work and devotion didn’t stop there. He ran a diner, cooking for the community of East Providence for the last 7 years until he retired in 2022. Even after his retirement, Tony wanted to stay active and decided to use one of his favorite hobbies, cooking, to cater parties at the Knights of Columbus. He even went far beyond catering events to then coordinating and organizing all the events as the president of the organization. He has passion, devotion, and dedication to being a hard-working valued employee in every aspect of his life. Unfortunately, due to Tony’s recent medical diagnosis, he cannot do most things he loves.

It all started in March of 2024 when he went to the doctor a few times due to difficulty breathing. However, these scans came back clear. After a few weeks of still not feeling well, he went back to the doctor where he found fluid and diagnosed him with pneumonia. Tony and his family thought this was the worst of it and were relieved to find a diagnosis. They were unaware the worst was yet to come and were not prepared for the life-changing news Tony was about to receive. When the pneumonia was not getting better, Tony went back to the doctors. 911 was immediately called to transport Tony to the hospital. Scared, confused, and unwell, Tony was unaware of what was occurring as 1.5-2 liters of fluid was now being drained daily from his chest for over a week. When a mass was soon found and biopsied, Tony finally heard the news that he has malignant peripheral nerve sheath sarcoma, a very aggressive cancer on the nerves between his heart and lungs, which occurs in 1 out of 100,000 people.

Due to the rarity of the cancer, Tony has to work with specialists in Boston at Dana Farber. Hopeful of the news that a clinical trial would help, he was quickly saddened by being taken out of the trial after a month due to unsuccessful results. This meant the next treatment option was Chemotherapy, something Tony and his family were hopeful he wouldn’t have to encounter. After just 1 round of chemotherapy, Tony was hospitalized for a neutropenic fever, lack of white blood cells and platelets, and an infection. He now has to receive numerous transfusions to keep his numbers high enough for his chemotherapy. Tony has become dependent on visiting nurses, PT, OT, and more for daily at-home health, safety, and independence.

His loving wife, Janice, has taken some time out of work to help care for Tony which has led to financial woes due to the increase in treatments needed for his rare and aggressive form of cancer. At this time, we are asking for any support that you are kindly willing to give. These supports would go directly to helping pay for transportation, transfusions, chemotherapy, and services to help provide Tony with daily at-home care. Our only goal is to help Tony get back to the hard-working, devoted, Bruins lover and cooking enthusiast that we all know and love him to be. Our family thanks you from the bottom of our hearts for your support during this incredibly difficult time.