Had what was described as a "bucket handle tear" in my knee in 2013 in my mid 30's whilst playing hockey, had arthroscopy (went private through work BUPA) under general anaesthetic to cut out the offending piece and tidy up in there. I'd had a partial tear of my ACL 10 years prior so the consultatnt cut out the torn section which wasn't actually doing anything and could potentially get in the way. Was back home the same day, had to go and see someone at the GP to get 2 stitches in the incisions out a couple of weeks later and to check it was healing ok and not infected.
As others have said, do whatever physio exercises they give you, if you don't then your recovery won't be as quick as it could be. "Fortunately" my injury was just after the end of the league season so had my op in July, was on crutches for a few weeks and eventually I was back playing hockey in March 2014 and did Reading half marathon the following year. My timings could be slightly off as it was over 10 years ago now...
Had a minor cartilage tear in 2023, doing shuttle runs on grass as part of pre-season training. Consultant advised a cortisone injection to reduce inflmation and see how it went. He also noted my ACL had finally given up the ghost some time in the 10 years between my two cartilage issues but wasn't done during the incident that tore my cartilage. If the cortisone didn't help then the options were arthroscopy to tidy up the tear or full ACL reconstruction.
Went with the cortisone injection in September 2023 and was back playing after Christmas. For me the consultatnt advised more stringent recovery due to my other issues. Currently just over a year on and still playing hockey and running, whilst i can "feel that I've got a knee" for want of a better term it's not given me any reason to stop playing or doing running so far (touch wood).
For cortisone injection, was a 5 minute job (ultrasound guided injection) and they gave a local anaesthetic, pain-wise it was then similar to getting any other injection. Bus there and back as they advised me not to drive, just in case but could walk without issue. After local wore off at home and I started moving my knee from horizontal to any sort of angle it sounded like someone had emptied rice kripsies into my knee, no pain but it sounded all kinds of wrong. Guessing it was due to them injectiong more liquid into the knee joint than is supposed to be there.