How to access Data Object from Perl thread

I am trying to import OVF. I have gotten as far as getting a Lease and starting VMDK upload. I see the data going through, but connection times out because I need to call HttpNfcLeaseProgress periodically from a separate thread to keep the connection open. The problem is I cannot seem to figure out how to share the HttpNfcLease Data Object with a Perl thread, so that the thread can call the HttpNfcLeaseProgress method. I have tried sharing the type and value fields of the HttpNfcLease MOR and the constructing a new MOR in the thread and calling get_view, but I get a segmentation fault. Any help or examples on how to do this would be greatly appreciated!