I get the sentiment but I'm not one to wait. When I tore my meniscus in my right knee while running, I was told surgery was the best way to have me in good shape for later in life. I am thankfully still relatively young (mid-30's) so I head quickly and figured if needs to happen eventually, might as well be right now. I was warned that recovery time could be up to 6 weeks with the first 2 as no weight at all on the leg. I'm an avid running and cyclist so of course I wasn't thrilled but if the result was decades of being able to do both, I scheduled the soonest date I could. The work needed on the knee wound up being less than initially thought so recovery was much quicker but I was still off the bike for a couple of weeks and no running for an additional week on that. Because I jumped on getting the surgery, the surgeon said a lot of potential damage was avoided and that was a big factor in healing quickly and being able to get back to my regular life.
A friend I run with, coincidentally, got the same surgery as me two days before I got mine and we've been able to compare recovery times. He's 8 years older than me but just as fit and active. However, he suffered through I think a good year of pain before finally getting the surgery and paid the price. Damage had been done to the bone and required a good deal more work to fix it. Full recovery took 10 weeks and there was a lot of pain and swelling for a long time afterwards.
We both had our surgeries the first week of November 2023. I was cleared to run before December hit and my friend wasn't cleared to run until the middle of January. Friend is still struggling to get back up to speed. I am back up to full speed on both the bike and running.
Some food for thought.
Originally Posted by
Camilo
Just brainstorming: I wonder if you could rig up a (good quality) recumbent tadpole trike to pedal with one foot? Yeah, now that I wrote it, it doesn't sound too helpful. I wish you good luck though. You gotta do what you gotta do and losing one bicycle season is not important in the big picgture.
I actually did that with my old Greenspeed recumbent trike back in spring of 2021 after getting in a motorcycle accident which resulted in surgery on my right knee. Couldn't bend it enough to ride for several weeks so I propped the foot up on a milk crate and just pedaled with the left. It at least got my heart rate up.