It’s a Wednesday evening in Monument Valley Park as Brandy Loseke begins to run. Her yellow and blue sneakers slap the pavement as she glides over the trail, her strides quick, long, and graceful. She moves with confidence and strength, and it’s clear that she’s run each trail in the park many, many times. Without looking closely, you would likely never notice the scars emerging from the sock of her right foot. The twin marks run two inches up the sides of each ankle — a poignant and jarring reminder that until three months ago, Brandy couldn’t run at all.
It was a cold day in December when Dr. Gary “Alex” Simpson met Brandy in Colorado Springs Orthopedic Group’s urgent care. Tears filled her eyes when he shared her diagnosis: she had a trimalleolar ankle fracture, shattering all three sides of her ankle and causing damage to the surrounding ligaments. In a week, she would need surgery.
Earlier in the day, Brandy had been running with a friend in Monument Valley Park. As she passed over a bridge, her foot slipped on a patch of ice. She fell hard, getting tangled up with her friend, and looked down to see that her foot was facing the wrong way. Her ankle quickly swelled to the size of a golf ball.
The injury and subsequent surgery were devastating. For Brandy, running is more than a sport — it’s her sanity. When her youngest son was born with colic, Brandy started running at night to calm him down. Several years later, she never stopped, eventually running multiple marathons. “I don’t know if there is anything I don’t love about running,” she says. “It’s an escape. It’s prayer time. It’s alone time. I love the challenge — how far and fast can you go?”
This past year, Brandy had finally qualified and was training for the 2023 Boston Marathon, something she had been working up to for six years. But now? She was going to spend the next several months in recovery, and she wondered if she was ever going to be able to run again.
A native of Colorado Springs, Dr. Simpson returned to the city to practice orthopedic surgery nine years ago. He’s earned the Colorado Springs Magazine’s Top Doctors award since 2018, and for the past two years, he has worked with Colorado Springs Orthopedic Group, specializing in foot and ankle orthopedics. Since the beginning of his career, Dr. Simpson has had a soft spot for athletes. In college, he studied sports injury management and athletic training, hoping to tend to injured athletes on the playing field. Even now, he volunteers with local high schools to provide sideline coverage and pre-season physicals for young athletes.
“I want to help people get back to the activities and sports they enjoy,” Dr. Simpson says. “Whether it is a broken leg or a torn Achilles tendon, I am able to use my hands to directly correct the problem, making an immediate impact in patients’ lives.”
In his practice, Dr. Simpson views patients like family, taking a personal and relational approach to treatment. “I take pride in making sure patients are respected, that they feel like they are an active part of their journey to recovery,” he says. This is the same mindset that Dr. Simpson had when coming up with a care plan for Brandy. Knowing she was an elite athlete with a passion for running, his goal was to get her back to the status she was used to.
Brandy’s surgery was successful but intense, involving a plate, two washers, and 10 pins to return her ankle to its anatomical position. For over two months, she couldn’t put any weight on her foot. “It was rough, as someone who is so competitive and driven,” Brandy says. “I couldn’t walk, and it was super painful. I have two kids, and I was literally crawling on my butt around the house. It was the most humbling experience I’ve ever been through in my entire life—I was so vulnerable.”
The instant she was out of surgery, Brandy wanted to know how she could start working towards running again. Knowing there were plenty of things she couldn’t do, she started focusing on what she could. With Dr. Simpson’s encouragement, Brandy started doing non-weight-bearing Pilates workouts every day, which helped her stay active and get her blood circulating.
Dr. Simpson also set goals for her to meet, knowing she had an athlete’s training mentality. Step one was getting her surgical wounds to heal. Step two was allowing the fracture time to heal. Step three was regaining the function of her ankle.
“He told me, ‘Hey, you’re a runner,”’ Brandy says. “‘We’re going to break this thing down like it is training.’ So we broke up my recovery into groups. He was so funny — he knew exactly how to encourage and deal with me.”
Brandy’s physical therapy included microcurrent therapies to break up scar tissue, ankle manipulation, and dry needling. By March, Brandy’s hard cast came off. By April, she started to walk. And by May, less than six months post-surgery, Brandy began to run.
On May 7, Brandy pulled a shoebox out from under her bed. In the box was a pair of yellow and blue running shoes, the colors of the Boston Marathon. The shoes were an early Christmas present from her husband the previous December, celebrating the achievement of her six-year dream of qualifying for the 2023 Boston Marathon. Soon after, she shattered her ankle. Now she removed the wrapping paper, which still clung to the box, and slipped the shoes on. “Alright, let’s do this,” Brandy told herself. For the first time since her accident, she was going to run.
It took a month for Brandy to start running continuously again. Today, she runs three to four miles during weekdays, and up to 10-mile runs on the weekends. In December, she will get the hardware—her plate, washers, and pins—taken out of her ankle in another surgery. By next summer, Brandy’s goal is to run a 3:30 marathon to qualify for Boston 2025.
For Dr. Simpson, seeing a patient like Brandy recover is impactful and rewarding. “This case is why I love orthopedics and caring for people,” he says. “One of the greatest joys in my practice is seeing patients realize that they are ready to get back to the sports and activities they love.” When she shattered her ankle last year, Brandy was initially angry. But now, she reflects differently on the past several months, an athlete valuing the challenge and growth of a trial endured.
“For several months, it was very depressing,” she says. “It was hard to maintain that ‘can’ attitude. But this experience has also given me such a beautiful picture of what the human body is capable of—its resiliency. Gratitude and humility are now the two words I use to describe this entire process. I’m grateful to Dr. Simpson because though I never gave up on myself, it’s his work that did this. Now I have an ankle that can run marathons again, and that is amazing.”
