My uncle’s new girlfriend fell down a flight of stairs and pulled a table over on her a little while back. She’s had a few surgeries and has to wear a brace. She has a choice of having a surgery that could possibly fix the problem but would have to stay off of that leg for a year and it could cause more problems than she already has if something goes wrong. OR she can wear an uncomfortable brace for the rest of her life.
What would you do?
Though my situation is probably not as severe as that faced by your uncle’s GF, it’s similar. I effed up my knee when I was about 11, and it didn’t heal. (for you medical-types, Osgood-Schlatter’s) I went to an orthopedist for several years, and we tried everything to make it go away.
It didn’t. It got worse and worse, to the point where the most eagerly awaited present I got for my sixteenth birthday was a cane so I could make it through bad days at my three-story high school. 
At last, having fought in vain, my orthopedist gave me a choice: learn to live with it (this included the use of a metal-jointed neoprene knee brace) or surgery. The operation itself was fairly simple but not really routine – in thirty years of practice my doctor had never had to perform it, as 99.999% of the time this kind of problem will go away on its own.
I chose surgery. Man oh man was that the most painful month of my life. I discovered a few hours after coming to that I’m quite allergic to morphine. I got to go home that night, in vast amounts of pain and puking my intestines out, and spent the next few weeks constantly drugged and barely mobile. Nothin’ like Christmas in a wheelchair.
Do I regret it? Not a bit. In fact, the orthopedist mentioned that there was a chance the operation wouldn’t work, and might have to be done again – despite all the crap I went through, if it hadn’t worked I’d’ve kept tryin it. Thankfully, though, I made a complete recovery and can now work mind-bending eight hour shifts on my feet without needing my cane.
So, while being off my leg for a coupla months doesn’t compare to a whole year, I personally would still choose the surgery.