I've been through pretty much the same recently, and I can assure you that the pain involved is minimal. The first painful thing will be the anaesthetic you get injected right into your toe; normally two injections are sufficient. This feels a bit odd as the anaesthetic excercises some pressure directly on your nerves - it's not a stingy pain or something, it just feels a bit weird.
During the operation, you won't feel anything at all (obviously). A few hours after the operation, when the effect of the anaesthisation slowly wears off, you will probably feel a kind of throbbing; not really painful, but annoying. I suggest you take some Paracetamol or similar stuff - just take care not to take any medication that makes your blood thinner (Aspirin, for example - the pill, not the coder
).
The only real painful moment is one or two days after the operation, when they change your bandage for the first time. If you are as 'lucky' as I was, they will have pushed a small strip of iodine-drenched bandage into the wound during the operation; this serves to provide disinfection and to prevent the wound from closing too fast, before ichor and blood can get out. This strip will get drenched pretty much, and as the blood slowly clots, it will get stuck inside the wound... The moment they pull this strip out of the wound, my friend, will be the moment when you shpuld have some vivid memory of pleasant things at hand, because this IS painful. But it lasts for two seconds, and then it's over. And once you have this behind you, there is no more serious pain - nothing worse than a
slight headache you won't even notice unless you focus on it.
However, if they want to remove so much and if you've been putting this off vor very long, you might have a nice little inflammation, and they might have to choose a different method.
Whatever they do: Never mind, unless the doctor suddenly comes up with a hatchet.