Plica bands, microfractions and arthroscopic surgery, oh my!

I had my second opinion today. It's not that I didn't like my other doctor, but let's get real - in the same breath he tells me that my plica band will almost definitely need to be taken out due to the pain/swelling....but let's wait ANOTHER 6 weeks before we decide on anything. I realize I'm not usually a patient person anyways, but I've been doing this hobbling thing for 2 months now...not cool when you have two children under the age of 5, a job, and the desire to actually do something other than sit on the couch all day long.

I immediately really liked this doctor. He came highly recommended from the wife of a board member at work who has just had knee replacement surgery, so the guy has to know his knee stuff, right? He came in and immediately put me at ease, looked over my chart, asked me all sorts of questions and torqued my knee in all sorts of directions (um, OUCH.). He took a couple of new x-rays to make sure my alignment was as it should be and that I wasn't causing myself the problem by walking funky (although by now I think I really am walking funky to compensate). Alignment was fine, so he presented me with the three possibilities of what he thinks could be wrong:
1) Plica band - an odd little band in your knee which is apparently a lot like your appendix or spleen. It doesn't really do anything to help you, but if it gets hurt it can cause problems
2) Cartilage problem - he best explained it by likening my bones to an M&M. The hard candy coating shell on the M&M "protects" it, but if there's a chip in it (i.e. chip or missing piece of cartilage on my bones), then that needs to be resolved
3) Nothing - that would suck because then I guess that means the pain is in my head??

Then he presented me with the two options:
1) Brace my leg/knee for a month or so, which may or may not help and he's not entirely sure what he'd be bracing my knee against
2) Surgery. Scope to be exact. If he gets in there and it's the plica, then remove it and I'm looking at a week or so of recovery. If it's the cartilage, then do a procedure called microfracture and everything heals up and I'm looking at another 6 weeks of crutches. If it's nothing, then they stitch up my incisions and I go home, probably with a brace to see if that can help.

I chose option 2, based on his recommendation. After talking it over with him, it does seem like this is the best option. I've tried the wait and see thing for 2 months, with my right knee completely healing and the left one getting worse. We've had MRIs and x-rays, but the problem is with the things that he thinks it may be, they don't show up on those diagnostic tools and the only real way to know what's going on is to get in there and take a peek.

So there you have it - I'm signed up for a diagnostic scope a week from Monday.

Good thing I've got great health insurance.

Oh yeah - and I've already met my deductible for the year, and I imagine I'm pretty damn close to the out of pocket max too.

And it's only April.