anyone living w patellar instability w/o surgery??

hi all!

im (27f) and i recently had two subluxations for the first time in 4 years.

my first major one was at 16 from crashing into my classmate in gym class and having a dramatic fall (didnt do pt, doctors didnt diagnose me w patellar instability)

my second one was from doing a silly anime pose with my friends at age 22. ortho told me i should do pt but i was in grad school writing my thesis and didnt have time. 6 months later at age 23 i had a major incident (running down stairs in platform docs, knee subluxing violently causing me to fall and sprain my other ankle on the stairs) my legs were messed up for months but eventually got to a good place with physical therapy and my ortho just told me not to do high impact activities without a brace. was diagnosed. i learned from mri that my mpfl is attenuated and i have trochlear dysplasia

i had been fine the whole time w the exception of my knee slipping out of place while dancing sometimes but not causing pain just more of a weird feeling. i swam a lot last year and my knee was feeling so good and strong i felt confident enough to run to catch trains again which was huge. (i had stopped swimming a 6 mos ago so i stopped running to catch trains haha)

i slipped twice on ice a month ago causing 2 subluxations a week apart. i feel mostly fine now - just doing at-home pt stretches and regaining strength. saw my doctor again and the doctor told me if i get surgery it will fix the problem but im terrified of the recovery since i would need mpfl repair + tto. currently waiting on mri results and the followup for next steps.

tldr: i really dont want to do surgery if i can help it. im scared of the recovery, complications, and some difficult personal circumstances. it feels right now like its something im going to have to do at some point. im curious if anyone is living with patellar instability and have had multiple subluxations and has not gone the survery route? are you active? are you fearful of high-impact activities? whats your experience like? thanks.