What you will hear, and what you will smell
A drape blocks your view. Most of the operation reaches you as sound and smell.
A drape is raised at chest level, so from the chest down you cannot see what is happening. Almost everything you take in during the operation arrives as sound, smell and sensation, and nobody describes these in advance.
The room is loud in an ordinary way. Instruments touch metal trays. The suction makes a wet, rasping noise, on and off, through the whole operation. A monitor beeps with your pulse. Alarms sound and are silenced, usually for nothing.
At the incision there is often a smell of burning. The instrument that opens tissue and seals small blood vessels uses heat, and heat on tissue smells like that. It is expected. It does not mean anything has gone wrong, and it surprises almost everyone who was not warned.
Near the end you will hear counting. Two people count instruments, needles and sponges out loud, twice over. It sounds alarming. It is a safety check, and it happens at every operation.
People will talk while they work, sometimes about you and sometimes about their weekend. That is what a working room sounds like. It is not disrespect, but it can feel unbearable when you are the one on the table, and you are allowed to say so.