Re surgery and eye changes: Medications, stress, and other life events can cause (often temporary) inflammation, changes in blood pressure, and "odd" changes in the body. I imagine surgery affects these things too. So after my surgery, my vision was quite different. Was it the medications? Yes, probably. Was it stress? Possibly. Was it increased inflammation or changes in blood pressure? Could be. Do I think that the surgery caused my cataracts, which were evidently growing peacefully and infinitesimally beforehand? No.
I think that my body's reactions to surgery called attention to issues I already had but hadn't really registered. Yep, my vision went wonky for a while. Yep, I visited my eye doctor, who told me that a cataract in one eye had grown, and that I was starting to develop one in the other. No, he didn't think it was from surgery. After TKR I had what seemed to be increased pain in my hip and ankle on the surgery side of my body. I thought, "What did that darn surgeon do???" My husband had to remind me that those aches and pains were there before surgery. My knee was soooo painful that I barely noticed the other discomforts. Now that the knee is doing well, my other body parts are asserting themselves and clamoring for attention. Did the surgery cause that? I don't think so.
Vision changes can be abrupt. I remember one day after my husband turned 41, he came downstairs and asked for a referral to my eye doctor. He had always had "perfect" vision, something I was, I hate to admit, jealous of, having worn glasses myself since 3rd grade! Suddenly--very suddenly, it seemed-- he had developed Presbyopia, which is a loss of elasticity in the eye that causes a person to have difficulty focusing in. Was it really that sudden? The doc said that of course it's a gradual process of aging, but that there's a point where it suddenly becomes annoyingly noticeable. He said that if he had a nickel for every middle-aged person who came into his office with a "sudden" inability to focus and complaining that they "couldn't see," he would be a very rich man. I myself didn't notice the "sudden" inability to focus until I was around 62. I kept going in to my eye doc, expecting my prescription to change, and he kept saying that my eyes were going closer to 20/20! "So why can't I see, Doctor??" Loss of elasticity and gradual growth of cataracts, which must someday be removed.
So my best guess is that these changes are co-incidental, not co-conspirators. At least, that's how I explain it to myself when I notice new issues that have cropped up suspiciously close to my surgery!!
and up to heaven using the good leg as a way to remember which to use. If you do that first and build strength before attempting to use the surgical leg to go up, you'll have less pain. You can add a few steps and a few repetitions every wekk. Going up with my surgical leg is still hard for me, but I pretty much always can do leg over leg now unless I am having a day of extreme numbness which still happens. Handrails are a must for anything more than one or two steps, and even then if the step is tall, I need a railing for just a couple of steps. This is one case where you won't get there without doing it on purpose and in a regular regimen. I bet if you start slow, you will be able to do stairs well within a matter of a few weeks.
you're practising going up and down stairs. hopefully after awhile it will feel good to be using both knees/legs equally so that one won't be compensating for the other. after my surgery, my "good" knee/thigh became very weak and a bit painful from the compensating to the point where my "new" knee was doing the work and i was leading with my new knee going up the stairs. i just kept using both going up and down stairs and now they both seem normal. i don't need to hold on to handrails if i'm not carrying anything. continue to do what you're doing since you're making progress.
When you're further along with your healing/recovery, and you have a bad other knee, you will "switch" over your use and thinking... 
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