Like many in the diabetes community, my wife and I were pretty disturbed when we heard the premise of Hannah Montana's "No Sugar, Sugar" episode that was scheduled to air last night.

The episode tackles the issue of juvenile diabetes, but not as we know it to be. A major, recurring character on the show gets diabetes. Oliver, one of Miley's best friends, is ashamed at first and tries to hide his disease from his friends.

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To the boy running away:

I hope your mom packed you a liverwurst sandwich.

I hope you get eaten by a Piranha Plant when you next play Super Mario Bros.

I hope the class finds out about Mr. Hoppy, the pee-stained stuffed rabbit doll you’ve been sleeping with since you were 2. I’m sure the girl you like would be very interested in knowing all about Mr. Hoppy. What’s her name again? Emma?

I hope a televised presidential address cuts right into a crucial moment in your favorite TV show.

I hope you wake up with incurable bedhead.

I hope you have an unstoppable case of the giggles during Sunday mass.

I hope you step in gum.

I hope it’s fresh gum that had just been spat out. (READ MORE)

videocrab on Flickr

In the past few months, I've really noticed the media attention given to diabetes. Countless times the "d-word" gets thrown into a media line, leaving me clinch to the familiarity of my disease and cringe at the inaccuracies they portray. Unfortunately, too much of this media hype is giving diabetes the wrong kind of attention. Too much of it is snide comments about the disease and not about funding for a cure or the pitfalls of diabetes.

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Last week, Kelly at Diabetesaliciousness blogged and tweeted about diabetes misconceptions she'd like the folk at Mythbusters to debunk. This past Tuesday, the theme for the sixth annual D-Blog Day was "Six things you'd like people to know about diabetes". Around the blogosphere we saw everything from "Don't tell me I can/can't eat that" to "don't pity me" and, most of all, "Don't assume that my diabetes is the same as your [cat's, aunt's, grandmother's, BFF's ex-lover's second-cousin's mother-in-law's] diabetes". (READ MORE)

(continued from Part I)

Myth 6.

"If you take insulin, or more than one type of insulin -- or you wear an insulin pump -- or you have to take pills and not-eat certain foods -- you have the 'bad kind' of diabetes."

• Fact: There is no good kind of diabetes. Each type of diabetes has its challenges in maintaining relatively normal blood glucose levels. Each type of diabetes, left unchecked, can cause complications and death.
• Fact: The really, really bad kinds of diabetes are diabetes that has not been diagnosed and diabetes that is not actively managed, whether by pills, insulin, and/or diet, and that is not well-monitored (by home glucose testing).
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