Thanks for all of the input, guys.

I was sitting at home thinking about this last night, and I remembered a good friend of mine works at the Limited Duty desk at the Bureau of Naval Personnel. I called him, and I'm glad I did.

I found out that if I did have the surgery before I retired, they would probably NOT let me stay past my retirement date of 30 November. I would be temporarily unable to work and at the same time looking for a job. Not good.

As long as I get this documented in my medical record, I can still elect to have it repaired later, so the most intelligent thing to do seems to be to wait until I'm settled into the new job and then have the procedure done. The new job is a "cushy" GS-11 desk job, so I wouldn't be out too long, plus, I'll still get to hunt this year.