@marieolds
Surgeon selection. Having an extraordinary surgeon gave me confidence that I would have a great recovery and I did -- no pain and initial ROM of 122.

If you already have your surgeon, I would say that a lot of icing with compression from an ice machine during the first two weeks will help a lot to bring down the inflammation and bringing down the inflammation makes the rest of recovery easier. My surgeon's recovery protocol is to essentially rest the first two weeks using the walker and then to start PT in the third week. It is similar to the Hospital for Special Surgery's Quiet Knee Protocol. That worked well for me and when I first started PT they put me on the exercise bike for five minutes and I was able to do full rotations.

But, I also believe that one has to follow the advice and instructions of one's surgeon. We are lay people and this is very complex surgery. If your surgeon has you starting PT right away, even though I agree with my surgeon's approach, I would follow the instruction. But I would make sure I was doing the regular icing (half hour on/half hour off) those first two weeks.

If you are able to rent the NICE ice machine (https://getnice.com/) it will make it much easier to do what I am recommending as it acts like a refrigerator to cool the water inside so you don't need to add and replace ice. It is way to expensive to purchase but might be available locally as a rental.