Boyd Huppert isn’t letting his cancer relapse stop him from telling stories, including his own

When Boyd Huppert, 62, was first diagnosed with cancer more than two years ago he had a decision to make: whether to fight his battle in private or in public. Huppert chose to share his story.

“I have an opportunity, because of my position, to share this story and hopefully help others, but it’s also been a big help to me,” Huppert told MPR News host Cathy Wurzer.

Huppert is living with a blood cancer called multiple myeloma. It has no cure. In 2022, Huppert had a bone marrow transplant. The success of the procedure allowed him to be cancer free for more than two years. In that time, he traveled with his wife and became a grandfather. He continued telling the stories of Minnesotans in his trademark “Land of 10,000 Stories” series for KARE 11. And he also shared his own story with complete strangers.

“I’m getting emails from people who just been diagnosed and maybe don’t know anyone with multiple myeloma,” said Huppert. “I was able to then provide some advice and experience to some other people who came behind me and that honestly has been therapeutic too.”

Now he’s sharing his story with the public once again. Huppert’s cancer is back, something he knew would happen at some point. The myeloma found its way around his bone marrow transplant.

“I’ve kind of come to the conclusion that a cancer fight is like, you’re either on offense or you’re on defense. And right now I feel like I’m on offense again, because, you know, there’s a new treatment coming my way,” said Huppert.

The new treatment is called CAR T-Cell therapy. Previously, the therapy was only approved to be used when patients had already received four lines of treatment. But in April, the FDA approved it for use after the first relapse. In June, Huppert’s T-Cells were harvested and sent to a lab where they were re-engineered to fight the cancer.

On Monday, they are being put back into his body. Huppert will then have a seven to 10 day hospital stay for observation. Following that, he’ll have to quarantine for a month since his body will be immunocompromised. But Huppert will still be on air. He has stories banked through Labor Day.  

“I’ve been told I can expect two to three years from this procedure where I should be cancer free, and then when this stops working, my oncologist is very optimistic about some of the other things that are coming down the pipe, or even the possibility they could just reboot this and do it again,” said Huppert.

And he’s optimistic. In fact Huppert shared that he just recently re-signed his contract with KARE 11 for another three years, as if to reassure himself and the viewers that he has hope he’ll be around to continue to share more Minnesota stories and that his own story is far from over.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.