Sorry for the lack of updates!
After the last hospital stay, I went home to recover. However, on Christmas Day, I felt some pain. I looked down, and the bulge was back where my hernia was. I did not want to spoil my holiday (again), so I held off calling the doctor until the following Monday. My appointment was scheduled for Wednesday, and the doctor did an ultrasound, trying to check whether the hernia was back or the abscess was back. Unfortunately, the ultrasound did not help much.
She sent me to the emergency room for a CT scan (was there from 2:30 PM until almost midnight.) Sure enough, it IS the hernia returning. (Meaning the infection must have spread to the mesh from the July hernia repair.) I am on standby now, waiting for the surgery to fix this (again) to be rescheduled. Unfortunately, this time I think they have to remove any remaining mesh from the previous surgery first before putting in new mesh.
In the meantime, I hanging in there.