I also lost 15 pounds after my surgery, but just because the pain meds made me not want to eat. I'm now 6 months post-op and my appetite definitely came back! The diabetes will complicate things for you and all I can say is to be careful and try to get stabilized.
I hate to say it, but the lack of sleep is one of the hardest parts of this surgery. I was probably at 5 months before I began to consistently get a good night of sleep. I would wander the house at night, dozing in the recliner, the guest bed, on the couch, or just watching TV or coloring. I had very bad leg spasms and the only thing that seemed to help was sitting in the hard kitchen chair for an hour or so - and that's where I would color since I had nothing else to do. I didn't really mind it so much until I went back to work after 4 weeks, and then I would sit there at night dreading how sleepy I would be at work the next day. Luckily I work at home and was able to take it easy and eventually that problem went away. By the way, I tried Ambien, Advil PM, and melatonin in my attempts to get sleep and they all made it worse. They made me really tired but the underlying cause of the problem still kept me awake and then I was even more miserable. I just tried to accept the fact that I would be up at night and had faith that eventually it would be OK. And it was.
One thing that affected my sleep was overdoing it with exercising. So if you need another reason to not overdo the exercising, there you go.....
It is hard to accept how long it takes to recover from this surgery. You keep thinking you feel better than you did so you should be able to do all kinds of things, and in reality you have a long way to go. Somebody posted pictures once that were taken during a TKR and after seeing those I really understood why it takes so long. Those pics are not for the faint of heart but it gave me a good idea of the trauma my knee and leg underwent. Patience!!!! I swear it does get better, but I also swear it will take longer than you think it should. Keep coming to BoneSmart when you are down or thinking it's not going well and do some reading or post your concerns. The people here are great and most of them have been through, or are currently going through, the same things as you. It is amazing how much it helps to find out you're not alone and other people have gotten through the problems.
Good luck!
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