Do I Have Enough Vacation Time?

I plan to take 3 weeks off for my surgery. Most people who have had Lap RNY say they feel fine to go back to work in 2 weeks (some even sooner), but I still feel more comfortable taking a full 3 weeks off. For a couple reasons:

• I drive 90 minutes each way to work - which equals 15 hours a week in the car. This is an exhausting part of my job and I want to make sure that I'm at my healthiest possible recovery point before I start making that long drive everyday. 
• I want to have enough time to adjust to my new diet before I'm thrown into the routine of "real-life" and having to eat at work or on the run. Those habits of proper eating need to be well ingrained before I jump back into my 12 hour days at work. 
• I missed a vacation this year because of all my health problems / doctor appontments - I literally used my vacation time for non-vacation stuff. So it would be nice to have a few extra days off to relax and recouperate. 

But here's my dilemma. I'm really really low on vacation and personal time right now. Like I said above, I've used a lot of my vacation time over the past year for doctor appointments and such, so now I'm running low.

For my 3 weeks off I need a total of 72 hours of vacation or personal time.

40 hours for the first week
16 hours for the second week
16 hours for the third week

I have short-term disability pay but that kicks in after the first week of being off, then only pays 60% of my wage. As you can see by the need for 16 hours per week after the first one, that would cover that missing 40% of my pay so I wouldn't have to live with smaller paychecks while I'm off.

RIGHT NOW - I have enough time. But I need to take a few days off before my anticipated surgery of mid-November. So that leaves me short.

After the first of the year I'll get a renewal of my personal hours and get an additional 48 hours. So then I'd be all set. And by January 1st, I will have earned another 28 hours of vacation time.

And this is where I'm having issues. Do I just schedule surgery for now and take the pay cut if I come up short on hours? Or do I put the whole thing off until after the first of the year when I'll have enough time. And technically because of issues at work, I would have to put off surgery until mid-February if I wait longer than December 1st.

I need to do some more number-crunching, I think. But it helps just to write it all out here so I can see it in black and white. But then again, why am I worrying about this when I haven't even been approved for surgery yet!

Talk to you soon!
~Pam