Best wishes to you, and here is a funny story about this...

My dad had such a hernia, he was born with it, and it never gave him a moment's trouble... but... when he became a US state department employee in his early 50's, they made him have it fixed surgically anyway. Apparently you can't work for USAID and be damaged goods or something...

So then, being the man he was, since they had shaved him "there" he decided to stop shaving his beard, "to see which hair grew faster" - but oddly enough, even though his moustache and muttonchops were not even grey yet, the beard grew in snow-white. So he tried to dye it with Grecian Formula or something and turned it mustard yellow... so he had to shave it back off. That was when he shaved the muttonchops and just kept the moustache...

But I never heard which grew faster, now that I think about it!