Hi there, I realise that your post was quite a long time ago and don't know if you still check for responses. Here goes anyway.
I am very intrigued to know if you went through with the surgery? I can totally identify with your situation, it is uncannily similar to my own. One of the few differences being I never had the surgery as a child. I am 37 years of age and my squint was discovered at age 11, I say discovered as I had relaised that my vision in my right eye was very bad and blurry as I waited in a cue to get my eye test at school age 9! I put my hand over my eye, before I got to the top of the cue, copying friends joking/pretending to be blind! I realised for the first time that I actually was half blind in one eye! The horror and immediate thought of the stigma of 1970's national health specs led to me reading through the gaps of my fingers covering my good left eye. The trusting district nurse! Not so 2 year later when we were told to cover each eye with a book. My lateral thinking failed me on that occasion and I was caught. I've always regretted my deception but was reassured recently that even at 9 it was probably still way to late. I presume my squnit must have been starting to show at this point although probably intermitent. My parents and teacher didn't seem to notice. Photos of me at this age let them off the child neglect charge! as it doesn't appear noticeable. However from 13 onwards it was almost permenenatly noticeable. Needless to say a year of an eye patch and glassess with a jam jar lens still didn't improve my vision in the right eye enough to allow me to even read. It was, in retrospect, a fruitless exercise similar to trying to revive a corpse you know it's pointless but the love of others compels them to atleast try!
At the about 12 I was told that squint surgery would be possible for cosmetic reasons but there was a risk of double vision. This bit was really laboured to me and looking back I do wonder if the risk was over emphasised due to the cash strapped climate of the NHS in the 80's wanting to discourage non essential surgery. Due to the predictable cruel comments from other kids, an increased interest in the oppossite sex and the vanity of teen years I decided I wanted the surgery. At 15 I went as far as being referred by my local GP but when the appointment came through the fear of the dreaded double vision made me decide not to go ahead.
Like yourself I have/had in many ways just accepted it as being part of me. However you never really, in my opionion, learn to accept it completely you just learn to live with it, if anything you forget about it. We don't see it ourselves, unless looking in the mirror or at photos, on a day to day basis personally and professionally we often meet the same people who are used to it anyway. The set backs in acceptance for me are meeting new people for the first time and group situations when you don't know peoples name. You are then accutely reminded of your squint by there obvious confusion regarding who you are addressing.
Also like yourself I wonder if people are patronising me when they say they haven't noticed it! The reality is sometimes yes sometimes not. If you think about it we becomme quite skilled at avoiding direct eye contact and positioning ourselves in certain ways, almost unconciously. Unless you are sitting directly across from someone staring intently or taking a lead role in some presnentation with all eyes on you it probably is not as noticeable as we think. Unfortunately a lot of situations do involve this. However if you have ever watched a video of yourself you probably won't notice the squint as you are moving, changing position communication is fluid where we are taking in a range of communication messages. It is not like a still photograpgh or straight on head reflection in the mirror. I did think that people were patronising me until recenetly somoeone I worked with pointed out their squint which I genuninely had not noticed! Although I do feel mine was worse!
With regard to driving I was late in the game learning to drive -29- mainly due to living in cities and not needing to but also a bit of fear around the potential impact of the 'eye'. Beleive me when I say the kerbing and taking corners to early is almost defintately more to do with driver inexpereince. Most new drivers, regardless of age, have plenty of bumps and scrapes in their first year of driving thats why insurance is so high. I have plenty of friends who did the same in their first year of driving and they have 20/20 vision. If you were an airline pilot that would be differrent. If you have perfect vision in one eye with or without glasses then you are fine to drive. The whole binocular vision bit is much more applicable to things like fast moving balls in sport where split milimeters make all the difference. If you think about it this way sometimes I may be a millimeter out in judging when I put my coffee mug on the table ocassionly this leads to it being uncomfortably close to the edge, as my other half always points out with alarm. However, unless drunk, I never misjudge walking through the door! Driving judgement is in meters or at worst centimeters. You should never be millimeters close to anything in a car anyway. If you aren't driving and happy with that fine but if you would like to and feel that not driving is holding you back please give it another shot. I have been driving for 8 years now and had one bad accident. I was fine but the car wasn't, this was on black ice and was unavoidable and nothing to do with my eye sight. Otherwise I have been fine apart from a few parking bumps again all in the first year.
Now to the interesting bit, earlier this year I increasingly became aware that I felt my squint had got worse and decided to go to my GP to explore for the first time since I was 15 the possibilities of surgery. This was a big step to take as I had thought about doing so off and on for over 20 years but kept telling myself I was bieng stupid. A really nice Gp referred me to the Eye Department at the local city hospital, it was great to be taken serously and not made to feel vain or making a big deal out of nothing. The specialist at the hospital were surprised I hadn't had it done as a child. Although releived as it makes the operation easier. I was asessed to have a low risk of double vision, something I do not recall being told in the early 80's maybe they can predict these things with more accuracy now? They can obviously never guarantee that double vision won' t appear and do stress this. I was told they were happy to provide the surgery through the NHS.
I had the surgery 9 days ago, they left in adjustable stiches and after I came around from the general anasthetic the surgeon and colleagues told me the operation had gone very well. After a couple of hours they came back and cleaned up the eye and gave me local anathetic eye drops, to my horror I did have some double vision. However they adjusted the position of the eye and that combined with my own ability to tune it out resulted in me having one clear image! I have alway had ocassional ghosting which I can tune out anyway. The first few days are pretty uncomfortable and the eye is very blood shot. Now it is a lot better still a bit pink though. I am not expereincing any real double vision. The position of the eye to me doesn't seem exactly straight but is a hundred times better than it was! My partner says that it is completely straight but I think it may still slightly squint to the right. The original intention was to slightly over correct the eye to allow for any later drift back to the right. My concern is that they probably had to put the eye more centred after I reported the double vision which may lead to a gradual drift back to the right. I will be able to discuss this in a couple of weeks with the surgeon.
All I can say is, at this stage, i'm really happy that I took the plunge and went ahead. I'm not out the woods yet in the sense that, according to the leaflets given by the hospital, in very rare occasions the muscles can slip again in a few weeks. So i'll just have to keep fingers crossed.
Regarding the double vision there is also a contact lens that can go over the pupil of the eye that blocks out the sight and hence double vision. You would obviously lose any peripheral vision you may get from the squinting eye. I believe you can also get a permanent implanted lens to block out the sight in the specific eye. It was ultimately these more discrete solutions as opposed to prism glassess and any eye patch that made me decide to risk it.
Everyone has to make the right decision for them, I hope if you read this it helps if you haven't yet made a decision. Either way I'd be really interested to know. If you don't read this the I suppose it's been a long therapuetic eye autobiography for me!

All the Best.