My Head's Screwed On Straight...My Knee's Another Story

As of last night, I've taken one more step down the Yellow Brick Road of knee repair. When my x-rays came up negative for anything related to a fracture, Dr. Johnson dumped me off on a Physical Therapist. Based on the motion tests Jeff did last night during our first visit, he's going on the assumption that I've somehow managed to tear my lateral meniscus in my right knee. This assumes that the part that was torn is somehow fouling up the motion of my knee, not allowing me to extend my leg and lock out the knee. For the anatomically-impaired (like me before I started to research this), here's a primer on knees - http://www.aclsolutions.com/anatomy.php.

Usually, when you think of an injured knee, you think of knee surgery, but Jeff explained to me that if we can get the swelling to go down and work on my mobility with structured exercises, we may be able to get the knee to go back to normal on its own. That would be a huge relief on my part and an incentive to do the grueling exercises he's going to throw at me over the next two weeks. So far I've got:

1. Leg bend with toe taps - Sitting flat on the floor with my legs extended, I'm supposed to plant my foot on the floor and bring it as far back towards me as I can, then tap my foot up and down 10 times.
   
2. Heel prop - Extending my leg as straight as possible and propping my right heel up on a roll or a towel, I'm supposed to sit there for 5 minutes, allowing gravity to work on my knee joint. Though I don't think it's bad enough to call it the "Hell Prop" as Jeff says one of his patients does, it takes a concentrated effort to bend my knee again after my 5 minutes are up.
   
3. Thigh tensors - For this one, I'm supposed to sit on the floor with my leg fully extended and contract my quadricep muscle while pressing my knee toward the floor. Jeff says that one of the body's responses to a knee injury is to shut down the muscles around the knee in order to protect the joint. This exercise is supposed to wake up the quad.

I'm supposed to go back 4 or 5 more times in the next two weeks, adding more exercises and hopefully gaining more mobility between each visit. If that works, then no surgery for me. If it doesn't, then it looks like I'll be experiencing arthroscopic surgery first-hand.