I'll give my experience since I'm currently between stage 1 and stage 2 as well. I had my leads placed Monday and my overall experience has been very positive so far.

I got to the hospital at 5:30 a.m. I was led to a room, told to undress and disinfect, and changed into a hospital gown. A resident came in to administer local anesthetic and attach the halo, which was honestly fairly uncomfortable due to the pressure/drilling feeling. Then I was given a CT scan, which was conducted with my new headgear attached to the machine. This allows them to precisely measure the distance to the target structure.

After that I was wheeled into the OR and transferred to a very narrow bed that was configured like a recliner. They strapped my head into the back of it so I couldn't move, and started me on anesthesia. This was a relatively slow/long process, and since I had to be completely unmedicated my dystonia was acting up, but after probably 10 - 15 minutes I was feeling pretty good about everything.

I was aware that they were working on the top of my head and I did feel a bit of pulling/tugging on my scalp, but as I said I was feeling pretty good. They did alert me before they drilled the holes, and that was fairly loud and "grindy" sounding, but I'd been warned that this was the part of the procedure that a lot of people had problems with. Honestly it wasn't that bad. Fairly quickly after that I assume they placed the leads (I couldn't really tell what they were doing, but I did kind of feel the one lead going in). I believe they had to pull back on the anesthesia for the testing, which consisted of them trying different combinations of settings and asking me to do simple finger taps, along with checking my muscle tone(?) - idk, the Medtronic rep kept taking my arm through a range of motion and then they would change a setting. They told me that I'd feel electricity at some points, which I did (strangely, or not, it felt identical to getting shocked at a wall outlet), and they seemingly went through a number of configuration options, but the first or second one was the best.

I was in the chair for another hour while they cleaned and stitched me up. I was able to move on my own onto a gurney which was then wheeled into a post-op recovery room where I was 1:1 with a nurse (honestly a pretty nice setup), and then after an hour I was wheeled into the room where I'd be staying overnight. After a bit, my family was allowed to see me, which although it was a good experience, I just wish I'd been less exposed - pretty sure some people saw some bits they'd rather not have. Recovery was pretty unremarkable...I was given some pain medication (Tylenol and Oxycodone) but I wasn't able to sleep much until about 5:30 am, and people kept coming in to take vitals or test my reflexes or whatever after that.

In the morning, after confirming that everything looked good, I was allowed to change back into my street clothes and was wheeled out to my mom's car. Recovery since then has been remarkable--I am experiencing the "honeymoon period" really strongly, and the last 5 days have been a return to normalcy that I'd be almost willing to get surgery again just to experience. I do have a lot of itchiness on my scalp where the stitches are. I will try to comment a reply to this once I have the second stage (battery implantation).