You know, i was told 4-6 weeks before I was back to lifting after I had my hernia repair.....that was bullshit.
I blew out an umbilical hernia nearly 3 years ago pulling linoleum off my kitchen floor. It was stupid, considering I'd squatted 585 x 8 two days before....
Anyway, after doing some reading, and watching the hernia seem to get bigger every time I went to the gym, I insisted on an "open" mesh repiar. I went to a very good surgeon in Manhattan and basically told him I'm a powerlifter, I'm going to squat 900+ some day, fix me so it won't break under that kind of pressure.
The surgery itself was pretty straightforward. I was back in the gym after 6 weeks with light work. The problem I had was hellacious abdominal cramps for almost a year. I'd lift something heavy and my abs would knot up so bad I couldn't breath. The same thing with any repetitive type movements like sex or crunches. I'm not just talking minor cramp pain either, I'm talking mind blowing, hurts like a guy knots in the abdominal muscles.
I dinked around with this for almost a year before I finally just got pissed. I fixed the problem---its only happened once since then, I've had no problems with heavy training or with the meets I've done since then, but it was not a fun year while I was having problems.
I've also come to find out that what I was experiencing---adhesions and cramps secondary to the adhesions is not an uncommon occurance with humans with mesh umbilical repairs. The close repairs are no where near as strong with a much higher incidence of reoccurance, but the mesh repairs are not problem free.
My advice---get if fixed and get it fixed soon. The longer you wait, the more likely you are to have problems.