Surgery Thursday, relief by Saturday, I promise.
BTW, when they’re prepping you for surgery and they have you sign or initial the knee that they are about to work on, jokes about signing the other knee with “How’s your lawyer?” are not considered funny. I learned that the hard way. 
The first thing I recall after surgery is being pushed down a hall.
I woke up and went, “wrong knee doc.”
He goes, “not funny.”
then I went back to sleep and the next thing I remember is them taking the first catheter out.
I recently had to go into physical therapy for both my knees. After years of playing volleyball, then running marathons, they were just…shot.
During my first marathon, I was running along and I heard my right knee clicking. It was going “click-click, click-click.” I tried to ignore it. After all, I was nearly the 18th mile. Just after the 18th mile, something popped and it felt like the knee cap popped out of place. They wanted to drive me to the finish, but I had just run 18 friggin’ miles. There was no way I wasn’t going over the finish line, even if I had to crawl. I got there, but not well. It wasn’t until 4 years and 2 marathons later that I finally went to the doctor. No severe bone damage, the muscles around both my knee caps had basically shut down. Five weeks of physical therapy, and I’m just starting to run again. I missed it so much, but I feel so much better, and there’s no clicking and no pain when I run. I’m also not stiff when I sit. It’s fabulous!
Left knee, while shifting weight from foot to foot. I’m still the only person I know who has dislocated a knee standing still. I was 21 and about to put music on and dance. I was at school (college) standing in a room with a bunch of my fellow students, shifting my weight back and forth.
My left leg gave, something went crackle, and after a few minutes I started crying from vexation, not pain. Very embarrassing. I was just thinking, this feels serious. I am three days from graduation, I’m going to have to pack up all my belongings, and I’m living in the top story of and Edwardian house owned my a mad pack rat.
Went to the doctor, he said I’d disclocated it and then snapped it back into the socket, but might have torn cartilage. Packing was really, really, interesting. When I got home I went to my family doctor, and she said that I had torn cartilage floating around, and they could operate, but first let’s see if we can get your knee strong- maybe we don’t have to do surgery.
It healed up except for occasionally not being able to bend it. I’m thinking of going back and getting surgery now, because I’ve started having problems again. I think I might have to ask my doctor to schedule some x-rays. It’s been five years.
Yeah, I do have atrophy issues, but at the time of the injury, my quads went dead. I was told that in some people, a traumatic injury can cause the nerves/muscles to shut off???
Seems kind of wonky to me, but I was unable to contract the quad. muscle at all until I had gone through a few weeks of therapy.
Right leg:
2 tears of the ACL, 1 of the MCL, tore quadracep off of knee cap, broke lower leg twice in same place.
Left leg:
Broke ankle, metal spike completely pierced through foot (bottom to top).
Right arm:
Broke thumb
Left arm:
Dislocated shoulder twice.
Body:
Broke 2 ribs.
I have other scars, too. 
My nickname is Lucky.
Arthroscopic surgery is great! My dad had what sounds like the same procedure - go in arthroscopically to clean up some torn tissue around the meniscus. He was back up and moving around just fine in less than a week.
Not me. I tore my ACL playing football about five years ago, and had it reconstructed using a third of my patellar tendon. Mullinator’s right on about everything - physical therapy both before and after surgery, the CPM machine, and working your ass off and challenging yourself throughout your recovery. If you keep at it, but don’t work too hard (my therapist had to tell me to back off a couple of times), your leg will be good as new. Exactly one year post-surgery, I was on a week-long backpacking trip in the mountains, and a year and a half later I was playing ball on the same field where I tore it in the first place.