Option 1 - sew the meniscus back together. Unfortunately, this one has a loooong recovery time because that part of the knee basically gets no blood flow, so the healing process is extremely slow. And until it is fully healed, it is very fragile. Very reasonable to be out for 6-12 months after a meniscus repair. Option 2 - leave the meniscus torn, but just clean up all the frayed edges. Still leaves you with a sub-optimal knee, but recovery is more like 1-3 months. In my case, I told the surgeon to use his best judgement based on what he saw once he got in there. He found my meniscus so frayed that stitching it back together just wasn't feasible. So he cleaned it up as best he could and left it at that. My knee still hurts sometimes, walking downhill or down stairs is slow going, and my range of motion is limited. But it hurts way less than before surgery, and my knee no longer "catches" where I'm just walking along and my knee completely gives out on me. I used to get dropped on my keister about once a week when that leg just became non-load bearing at random times. I've basically got only half a meniscus in one knee, and not much can be done about it. So yeah, if he had a surgically repaired meniscus, he's not going to be an athlete for the rest of the year.