Boise bar owner hospitalized second time with COVID: ‘Respect this. ... It’s a killer.’

Ted Challenger wants to clarify a thing or two after his Facebook video was picked up by local media.

He’s doing “great” after more than a week at St. Luke’s Boise Medical Center — or two weeks if you count a prior hospital stint last month. “They took me off oxygen today,” he said Wednesday in a follow-up video.

The staff in the COVID-19 wing are “all heroes in my book,” he added in a phone interview. “I owe them my life.”

Challenger has not contracted the coronavirus three separate times, as he originally suggested Monday. “I literally thought I did until yesterday,” he explained by phone Wednesday.

But COVID-19? “It comes out of nowhere,” Challenger warned Idahoans, “and it’s deceiving. It doesn’t make sense. And it’s a killer.”

A well-known Boise businessman, Challenger, 52, owns three downtown bars: StrangeLove, Dirty Little Roddy’s and Amsterdam Lounge. Between coughs, he revealed on social media that he’s been fighting COVID from an isolated hospital bed.

In an update, Challenger said he thinks that he picked up the virus over a year ago — and it’s plagued him since. “I’m what’s called a long hauler,” he explained.

Either way, he’s looking forward to putting this nightmare behind him.

“I’ve never, ever been challenged to breathe before, and it’s one of the scariest things,” he said. “I will never take a breath without being grateful again. So many things I took for granted.”

Challenger was diagnosed with vasculitis in 2019, when he began having a series of “mini-strokes.” The condition could make him susceptible to a long-term coronavirus infection, he explained.

After consulting with a virologist, Challenger thinks he contracted COVID-19 in January 2020, before the national pandemic erupted. After one of his bar managers went to a Portland convention, she returned “super-sick.” Challenger soon followed suit, he said. “I struggled with it for four months.”

He’s had symptoms intermittently for a year, he said, causing him to suffer in frustration. “I have had, now, 12 nose tests, and I’ve never tested positive for COVID,” he said. But when St. Luke’s performed a bronchoscopy recently, the diagnosis was confirmed, Challenger said. “When they went in the lungs and took out those samples, it was COVID. ... A whole year, I’ve had COVID in my lungs, is the basic way to say this.”

As a bar owner, Challenger is optimistic that things will improve soon. “I just advise people: Stay the course. We’ll get our economy back. But still, respect this.”

“I have the best team,” he added. “I’ve kept my team during this COVID thing, and it’s been the best thing I’ve ever done, because they take care of work and I don’t have to worry about it.”

Amsterdam Lounge, 609 W. Main St., reopened with limited occupancy a few months ago. Dirty Little Roddy’s, 100 S. 6th St., will do the same March 1. Dance club StrangeLove, 100 S. 6th St., has opened partially with a small lounge. The main dance floor won’t reopen “until I feel COVID’s pretty much over with,” Challenger said.

Until then? Wear a mask, he urged on social media.

“It doesn’t take your freedom,” Challenger said. “It really doesn’t. And it does make a difference.”

This story was originally published February 10, 2021 at 12:34 PM.