When asked if he remembers his lowest point during his ongoing battle with multiple myeloma, Boyd Huppert chuckled.

“I do,” said the award-winning KARE-TV reporter and “Land of 10,000 Stories” host. “It was probably a week after the (bone marrow) transplant. You feel pretty good for four or five days, but then it was like a truck hit me and it was two weeks of feeling as sick as I’ve ever been.

“Every day, we’d go down to the U for blood tests. Some days I needed platelets or anti-nausea drugs or fluids. (My wife) Sheri was going to drive us and I threw up in the driveway. That was my low moment. I told Sheri, ‘I don’t know if I could do this anymore.’ I was so sick and so exhausted and there I am, throwing up in my driveway. I don’t know that I can get any worse. And I don’t know that it ever did.”

Indeed, more than two years after he was diagnosed with the relatively rare blood cancer that has no known cure, Huppert’s life is back to normal, or at least a new normal. He’s back in the office, and the field, three days a week reporting feel-good stories from around the state. And he’s back to spending Thursdays and Fridays training reporters around the country for KARE’s owner, the media company TEGNA.

“I wish I didn’t have this and I wouldn’t wish a cancer diagnosis on anyone,” said Huppert, who turns 62 next month. “But I try to find the good in the bad and make the best of this situation. It gives you a different perspective on life. Every day I wake up is a blessing. Every day I feel good is a blessing, and I can’t take that for granted.

“I feel good. I’m productive, I’m surrounded by people who love me.”

‘Very good partial remission’

It was a fluke when Huppert learned he had cancer back in September 2021. Concerned he may have a torn retina, Huppert saw his eye doctor just before leaving for Denmark to conduct a workshop for one of the country’s television networks. He was cleared to fly, but there was some hemorrhaging behind his eye, he was anemic and there were “some other areas of concern.”

Upon his return, he learned his blood was cancerous and that he was at immediate risk of a heart attack or stroke. After a hospital stay and 45 bags of donor plasma to get his blood stabilized, Huppert returned home where he worked remotely, leaving just twice a week for chemotherapy and blood tests. The goal was to kill off the cancer in Huppert’s blood and get him healthy enough to undergo a bone marrow transplant.

“I didn’t reach a full remission,” he said. “My status is ‘very good partial remission.’ There’s usually a period of a few years after a transplant that you are in remission. I don’t get that period of time. But I’m stable and that’s the best word I can hear right now. The cancer is there, but it’s in the weeds.”

After eight months of chemo, doctors removed 6.3 million stem cells from Huppert, froze them, and put them back in his body after a particularly intense round of chemo. His surgery in April 2022 was a success, although he took three months off work to prepare and recover.

One bright ray of hope arrived a month before his transplant in the birth of Tess, Huppert’s first grandchild.

“She was born on St. Patrick’s Day, the timing was perfect,” he said. “I had a really small window of time and was able to drive down to Omaha for a few hours. I got to hold her. The baby was the only one in the room not crying.”

Rebuilding strength, one step at a time

After the surgery, Huppert returned home to recover. The transplant wiped out all of his immunity so, over the course of a year, he received 60 years’ worth of immunizations. “My doctor told me my baby granddaughter had more immunity than I did,” he said with a chuckle.

About a week after he vomited outside his Edina home, Huppert began to feel better. In order to regain his strength, he started walking around the block every day.

“I set a goal for myself,” he said. “It wasn’t very fast walking. I have a neighbor up the street who was working from home. He said he’d see me coming up the street on a walk with Sheri, he’d go make himself lunch and come back to see me still coming up the street. I was like Tim Conway in those skits on ‘The Carol Burnett Show,’ slowly shuffling along.

“It would take us half an hour to walk around the block, but all of a sudden we were going a mile, then going two miles. There’s so much about this I can’t control, but what I can do is stay strong. I don’t know if a strong body will keep it from coming back, but it can’t hurt. I’m ready for the fight whenever it decides to start ramping up again.”

Related Articles

Hundreds honor slain Hmong advocate and performer Tou Ger Xiong at Woodbury memorial

Dreaming of a white Christmas? Try Alaska. Meteorologists say Minnesota will get a wet Christmas

Just one of about 40 St. Paul Neighborhood STAR grants went to an arts organization

St. Paul potholes: mission accomplished?

12-year-old piano prodigy serenades the White Earth Reservation

Before his cancer, Huppert averaged about 4,000 steps a day. He now takes 15,000 steps a day.

As he built up his strength during the summer of 2022, Huppert slowly began returning to his pre-cancer life. He started with outdoor shoots and eventually got to the point he could return to the office and begin traveling again. Huppert said he’s flown to around 10 cities for in-person training for his TEGNA gig. He’s also focused on leisure travel.

“I’m living life differently,” he said. “We’re taking trips we had been putting off until retirement. This past spring, we went to Paris, which was going to be a retirement trip. That’s the way we’re living our lives now. We can’t put off anything we want to do. None of us really have any guarantees in life and my diagnosis has made that much more real. If there’s something we want to do, we just go do it.”

‘I’ve been really lucky’

Huppert, left, talks with KARE 11 sports anchor Randy Shaver, a fellow cancer survivor, at the television station’s studios in Golden Valley. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Prior to his diagnosis, Huppert was a night owl who often found himself staying up to work into the wee hours. These days, he gets up at 5:30 a.m.

“I’m either playing racquetball at the gym at 6 a.m. or I head out for a five-mile walk before work. I never used to do that and now I do every day,” he said. “I feel good. I know there is still cancer present in my blood plasma, but I’m living my life like it’s not.”

Once every two weeks, Huppert goes in for maintenance chemo. He said, beyond that, he doesn’t think much about his cancer.

“People tell me it must suck to have to go to chemo. It doesn’t. I hope I can go to chemo for the next 20 years because that means it’s still working. And it’s not an unpleasant experience. I’ve made friends with the nurses. I go down there and get to hang out with nice people for a couple of hours and then leave with a little spring in my step knowing I don’t have to go back for another two weeks,” he said.

Huppert gets blood tests regularly along with a bone marrow biopsy every few months to ensure his current treatments are working as they should.

“The longer they can keep me on these drugs, the better,” he said. “They seem to be working, but they won’t work forever. But I have more options for when that happens.”

One thing that’s not on Huppert’s radar these days is retirement.

“I was so glad to have those three months off work,” he said. “It told me I’m not ready to retire. All I could think about is that I want to get back to work. I want to see my co-workers. There are so many wonderful people out there, I want to keep meeting them and keep sharing their stories. When I am ready to retire, I want it to be on my terms.

“I’m just out here trying to make the best of this. I’m trying to be a better person, to take better care of myself, to be more present with my family and to be more grateful. This past year has been filled with blessings. I’ve been really lucky.”

Related Articles

Calling all volunteers: Minnesota DNR has a job for you

Joe Soucheray: This weather is just heavenly and I know it can’t last

As mushers wait for snow, organizers consider postponing Beargrease sled dog race

Dreaming of a white Christmas? Try Alaska. Meteorologists say Minnesota will get a wet Christmas

Star Tribune to pay subscribers $2.9M for sharing video data with Facebook