Not had it done myself but I have been awake for a few surgeries now and none of them were remotely gruesome because you can’t see a darn thing anyway. But I’m a nosey, curious bugger so when surgeons were removing metalwork from healed broken ankle I asked could I watch. Well they sat me up a little, but with the 2 of them together on either side of the ankle with their backs to me all I see was through the lighting frames But they did show me the plate and pins they removed
So if the surgeon is working on your neck, chances are your head will be turned away, face covered to avoid splatter, etc so you won’t see anything gruesome anyway.
If you can have the op with a local, I would highly recommend it as you’ll get out of the place far quicker
@petejay has also started a post on this very subject so you could keep an eye on each others, maybe compare notes later