The Knee Replacement Preparation Manual: A Practical Week-by-Week Guide for the 12 Weeks Before Surgery (Joint Recovery)

The preparation manual you wished came with the surgery date.

When your surgeon hands you a knee replacement date, you walk out of the office with a folder of paperwork and twelve weeks of uncertainty. What should you do first? When? In what order? What actually matters, and what's just noise from the internet?

This is the structured plan most patients never get.

What's inside

The decision (Part I). Whether now is the right time. The two regret clusters patients describe afterward. What "candidate" actually means. Conservative options still on the table. When a second opinion is worth getting.

The surgical team (Part II). Why the surgeon matters more than the implant. Volume thresholds that correlate with outcomes. The questions to ask in a consult. Procedure types, surgical approaches, implant designs — with appropriate skepticism about the marketing.

The twelve-week countdown (Part III). A week-by-week schedule from 12 weeks out to the morning of surgery: medical clearance, lifestyle optimization, prehab exercises, home setup, equipment, paperwork, and the final 48-hour runbook.

The non-physical preparation (Part IV). Mental preparation. Your caregiver and support team. Preparing if you live alone. Work conversations, insurance, finances, and the rest of your life logistics.

What's coming (Part V). Surgery day hour by hour. The hospital stay. What the first weeks will actually feel like. The full recovery arc in advance, so you arrive without surprises.

22 appendices you'll actually use

Surgeon interview questions. Implant comparison scorecard. Six-week prehab exercise program. Tiered equipment shopping list with current prices. Hospital bag packing list. Room-by-room home setup. Caregiver onboarding kit. Pre-surgery nutrition program. Smoking cessation plan. Insurance and authorization checklist. Twelve-week master checklist. Final 48-hour countdown. Glossary. And more.

The chapters explain why. The appendices give you what.

Written for the patient, not the practitioner

Plain language. Honest about what's known and what isn't. No false certainty about timelines, no overpromised outcomes, no dismissal of legitimate concerns. The book treats you as someone capable of handling the actual situation — because you are.

If you've been told you're a candidate for knee replacement and you have anywhere from a few weeks to several months before your surgery date, this is the manual that walks you through that window. By the time you arrive at the hospital, you'll have done the work — physical, practical, and mental — that the patients with the easiest recoveries do.

Part of the Joint Recovery series. Companion to The Knee Replacement Recovery Manual, which covers what comes after.