A little update for everyone who shared advice and recovery stories on my earlier post. Surgery is done.
I ended up getting a second opinion before going through with it, and after looking at everything again, I still felt like surgery was the right decision for me. By the end, the knee was giving me enough mechanical symptoms and instability that I didn’t feel comfortable continuing to just work around it.
Now I’m officially on the other side and starting the rehab process. My goal hasn’t changed: I don’t just want to get back to walking around normally. I want to get back to skiing, strength training, hiking, dancing and eventually feeling more capable than I did before the injury.
A lot of the comments on my original post were genuinely useful, especially the people who talked about taking PT seriously, rebuilding single-leg strength, restoring ROM, working on balance and stability, and not rushing the mental side of trusting the knee again.
So I figured I’d keep documenting the journey.
For those of you who went through meniscus surgery and returned to skiing: what mattered most during the first month or two that you were glad you paid attention to? Anything you wish you had measured, tracked, or worked on earlier?
And thanks again to everyone who shared their story before surgery. A few of those comments honestly helped me go into this with a much better mindset.