Does it pay to give up smoking? Just ask Richard Puhala of Pitt Avenue in Westmont, a retired English teacher and coach at Westmont Hilltop High School.
He quit smoking in July of last year and says he has saved about $1,300 since breaking his pack-a-day habit. And that isn’t counting the health benefits.
“The money I would have spent on cigarettes I put in the pot now for me,’’ Puhala said. “I bought a brand new watch, an LCD television set, a self-propelled lawnmower, a cordless hedge trimmer and a cordless weed whacker. I even bought Carol (his wife) all her flowers this year out of that money.”
He had smoked since he was in high school. Breaking the nicotine habit wasn’t easy, but with determination and a new pill, he did it in about a week. It was a combination of his family doctor and his arthritis specialist who nudged him into it.
“My arthritis doctor told me I’d better stop smoking,” Puhala said. “They asked me if I wanted to go on the patch or the pill or gum. I said no.
“I had too many friends who tried that and failed. The doctor said they came out with a new pill and a two-week program. I did it in one week and no side effects.”
All that was months before Puhala knew he had cancer.
That came in late December.
“In December, my snowblower broke and I had to shovel my driveway by hand,” he said. “The next day, I had a small lump between my lower abdomen and groin. I went to Dr. Carney and he worked his finger under it, and it was a node. He had me come back in a week and took it out. The test result came back from the lab malignant. The oncologist confirmed it was cancer.”
There was a battery of tests but curiously enough, doctors could not find a primary source.
They did find spots on his chest, spine and spleen. Then came treatments with radiation and chemotherapy, then more tests and more chemo. There have been positive results.
“There is only one week since Jan. 8 that I haven’t been to the hospital, a doctor’s office, a treatment or test center, over and over,” Puhala said. “The only thing I don’t like is I’m exceptionally tired from all the chemo. It slowed me down a bit, but I know I’m getting better.”
Carol Puhala said her husband’s attitude has been excellent.
“My attitude is I have it and I have to make the best of it,” Richard Puhala said. “There are about five days in each (chemo) cycle when I have no taste. Everything tastes like a tin can.”
He hasn’t lost any weight and Carol Puhala said he “is no grumpier than usual.”
Richard Puhala was born in Johnstown on Jan. 12, 1939, the youngest child of John and Jenny Puhala. There were three older sisters, and he said that “as the baby of the family, boy was I spoiled.” He graduated from Johnstown High School in 1956 and Penn State in 1960. After that, he served in the Army for three years at Fort Knox, Ky., as a personnel specialist.
His first teaching job was in Emporium, 1963-64. He taught at Westmont from 1965 until his retirement in 1998. He also coached a variety of sports. He has been head junior high wrestling coach, head baseball coach, football trainer, seventh-grade football coach, swimming coach and assistant swim coach.
“We had so many kids coming up from the ‘Y’ program and my kids both swim,” he said. “Westmont had a swim team twice before. We decided to start a swim team again in 1993 or ‘94. It’s been going over 10 years now. The guys have been champions all but three years and the girls about half the years. Our children, Zachery and Alexis, swam as the only brother-sister team to go undefeated.”
Puhala also was a registered swimming official for more than 20 years. He officiated the YMCA winter nationals in Florida, and the summer nationals in Buffalo, N.Y. He and Carol made the Florida trips by auto-train.
The Puhalas are a charming couple and can joke back and forth good naturedly. Richard and the former Carol Grey were married June 14, 1980.
Some people with the cancers that Richard has would live in despair, but not him. He is approaching his treatment with the same enthusiasm and confidence he displayed in coaching.
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BILL JONES | Former teacher beat smoking, now faces battle with cancer
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