Author Wayne Brown shares his life story on December 7th at Daemen College

Thought I'd pass along this press release from local author, Wayne Brown, about his upcoming event. I wrote an article about him last year for the Daemen alumni publication. He is a truly inspirational person.

Local Author Shares His Life Story For Anyone To Hear- And Ask Questions

Buffalo, New York (November 29, 2011) Wayne Brown, author of Alone in My Universe: Struggling with an Orphan Disease in an Unsympathetic World will be presenting his book openly and honestly on December 7, 2011. A Daemen aumnus, Brown, is proud to be returning to Daemen to discuss his book, and additionally teaching a class on “Navigating Life with Rare Diseases” in Spring 2012.

The event will be held on Wednesday, December 7th, from 7-9 pm in Daemen’s Alumni Lounge inside the Wik Center. Please join us!

This evening is for anyone who has ever experienced feelings of loneliness. Life is wrought with endless challenges for most of us, but in 2004, Wayne Brown was diagnosed with a tumor in his pituitary gland right by his brain. If that wasn’t upsetting enough, Wayne had lost his father to brain cancer a mere decade before. As if that still wasn’t enough, the disease was so rare that he had never heard of the disease he was just diagnosed with; and would not meet anyone like him for another five years.

Since 2004, Wayne Brown took his loneliness and despair, and used it to grow one of the world’s leading advocacy groups for patients dealing with Acromegaly, a rare pituitary disorder that affects only about 20,000 in the United States. Acromegaly Community started out as a MySpace group, which migrated over to Facebook as its popularity grew. Now, with a freestanding website, AcromegalyCommunity.com, Wayne has helped to develop a global network of support for people battling confusion and loneliness that is associated with this rare disease. In Wayne’s career as a patient advocate, he has developed relationships with the biggest names in endocrinology and neurosurgery, he has worked with every major pharmaceutical company that produces drugs associated with Acromegaly, and has directly offered support and intervention services for patients in Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia, and all throughout North America.

Wayne has consulted with countless medical professionals on everything from patient needs to product packaging and patient pharmaceutical support. He has been published in the Buffalo News, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal, and has been a feature of various media outlets, including NewYorkTimes.com, ESPN Magazine, ABC News (both at WKBW and national ABC News) and CBS Radio in Los Angeles. Most recently, Wayne was a guest speaker at Stanford University’s Endocrine Education Day, at the request of their Director of Endocrinology. In addition to hearing about Wayne’s book, Alone in My Universe, you will find out how Wayne met his life challenges and used them to change the world for a small, but significant segment of the population.

This event is free, and open to the public.

AcromegalyCommunity.com’s mission is to provide and emotional and communal support network for people touched by acromegaly. We offer a central location for medical information on issues including: surgery, medication, radiation and and post diagnosis support. Most importantly we provide a network of emotional support for acromegaly patients, their friends and their family.

Contact: For more information contact
Wayne Brown, Exec Directory, Acromegaly Community
wayne@acromegalycommunity.com
(716) 844-8780

Local author signing on Saturday

Just a reminder that the annual local author signing will be held at the Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society, 25 Nottingham Court, Buffalo this Saturday, Nov. 26 from noon-2:00pm. Over 30 Western New York authors will be there. Hope to see you there!

Stained glass window tour

This past Saturday my sister-in-law and I went on our annual stained glass window tour of churches bus tour with Buffalo Tours. It is amazing to see all the beautiful stained glass windows in Buffalo's churches.

As with previous tours, this one started at the Buffalo Religious Arts Center in Buffalo's Black Rock section. We then rode the bus to St. Paul's cathedral and Trinity Episcopal. Next, we had lunch at Chef's and after lunch two more churches, First Presbyterian and Church of the Good Shepherd. Above are just a few of the photos I took.

Next year's tour will take place in November or early December.

Learn about Polish traditions at Castellani exhibit

If you have any Polish roots in your background, you'll want to check out the exhibit of Polish folk art at the Castellani Art Museum on the campus of Niagara University. This exhibit is on display until November 27, 2011, so you only have a few more weeks to view it.

The exhibit, which features the work of the late Alice Wadowski-Bak, takes you through the traditions for each season of the year. From the traditional Swienconka at Easter, including the blessing of the foods, to the Christmas Eve Wiegalia dinner. Each pen and ink drawing is accompanied with a written explanation. I thought I knew quite a bit about Polish traditions, but I learned even more by viewing this exhibit.

Also featured in the exhibit is a display of Polish paper cutting (wycinanki). In addition to the Polish folk art exhibit, there are several other exhibits at the art gallery, including their Underground Railroad exhibit

One thing I like about the Castellani art museum is that admission is free. For more info go to http://www.castellaniartmuseum.org/ If you want to make a day of it, you can also go to the Power Vista, located adjacent to the campus. Admission is also free there.

Vereran's Day Ceremony at Forest Lawn

This morning I went with my youngest son, a Cub Scout, to the annual Veteran's Day Ceremony at Forest Lawn Cemetery. I was amazed at the number of people there, veterans, Scouts, ROTC students, and just everyday citizens, who volunteered to place flags at the graves of veteran's who have been lad to rest at Forest Lawn's "Field of Valor."

I found it to be deeply moving to be involved in this simple act of remembering veterans who gave their lives so that we could enjoy freedom. Many of the older graves are probably only visited on Veterans Day by the volunteers, as the soldier's friends and families are most likely long gone themselves.

Articles to help you get into the holiday spirit

Want to get into the holiday spirit? Well you could go to the mall, the grocery store, or any other store, because THE DECORATIONS ARE ALREADY UP!!!!. I don't know about you, but what's the matter with waiting until Thanksgiving?? (I know, money, profits, etc)

I have an article about holiday light decorations in the November 6th edition of the Democrat and Chronicle. Find out about the Winter Festival of Lights in Canada, The Lights at the Fairgrounds, and more. I also have an upcoming article about the Festival of Lights at Our Lady of Fatima Shrine in Lewiston in the November 20th issue of the National Catholic Register. Both these articles can be read online. The Democrat and Chronicle article is up now, the National Catholic Register article should be online in a few weeks.

Also, if you are looking for walkable shopping districts, as opposed to the shopping malls, check out my article in the November issue of Forever Young, available for free at Wegmans, some drug stores, and other retail outlets.

Seminar in Ellicottville

Today I went down to Holiday Valley in Ellicottville with other members of the Niagara Frontier Tourism Task Force. for a Get Listed seminar about websites, social media and google places. It was very interesting but a lot of information all at once. It was a nice day for a drive and one of our members owns a limo service, so we went together in a limo bus

The restaurant at Holiday Valley had really good food as we had lunch before the seminar began.