After years of putting her daughter’s medical needs ahead of her career, former LPGA pro Jane Park is now facing a frightening health battle herself. The 39-year-old shared that she may need an invasive surgery, but she cannot afford to without worrying, because she needs to be there for Gracie.’

“If anyone has dealt with Superior Canal Dehiscence Syndrome (SCDS), please message me. My CT scan showed that this is my diagnosis. They said invasive surgery is the fix (drilling into my head, lifting the bottom of my brain to get to the area). Have anyone’s symptoms ever just disappeared? I’m hoping 🥲. I can’t afford to have this 4-hour surgery with a 1-2 day ICU stay since I’ve got Gracie to care for,” Jane Park wrote in her Instagram Stories.

SCDS is a rare inner ear condition caused by a thinning or a missing hole, which creates a “third window” in the temporal bone covering the superior semicircular canal. The result is hearing and balance symptoms triggered by sound or pressure. Park revealed facing similar symptoms earlier this month but thought it was a brain tumor.

She heard her own breathing and chewing echoed distorted in her ear. She even had episodes of dizziness, vertigo, and unsteadiness, which were triggered by loud noises around her. Even the high-pressure situations like coughing, sneezing, straining, or blowing your nose put her in uneasiness.

She likes to rely on the community she has built and says that “Crowdsourcing on Instagram” is her “favorite way of getting information about anything.” The messages reflected that conservative management is an option for minor cases. The muffled hearing issue will likely stay, though, unless she gets surgery, which continues to remain worrisome because of Gracie’s needs.

Grace has been fighting a health battle of her own for the past five years. Park married caddie Pete Godfrey in 2017, and they welcomed their daughter, Gracie, in 2020. She was born with pneumonia and had to stay in the ICU without sunlight for 18 days. While those 18 days were over, it was just the start of a very challenging journey.

At a very young age of just 10 months old, Grace was then diagnosed with refractory (intractable) epilepsy. In this condition, even medications cannot completely stop the episodes of seizures. Jane Park had revealed that she sometimes had 200 seizures a day.

“I try not to look at her too much because my heart aches to the point where I almost don’t feel like myself,” Jane Park said in a blog from 2021.

These sudden seizures led to brain swelling and permanent brain damage. Thus, Grace is now nonverbal and fully dependent on her mother. Seizures are fewer now but more violent when they occur. After a few hours since she first posted about her SCDS, the 5-year-old had a giant seizure that made her scream in a way that her mother had never heard before.

“My fear is alive and well; it’s just learned to hibernate for self-preservation,” she wrote.

It’s the same fear that doesn’t allow her to undergo surgery for SCDS. But over the years, she has found a way to cope with that fear.

Jane Park finds calmness in painting

When her daughter was diagnosed with refractory epilepsy, she had to give up her golf career to become a full-time caregiver for Grace. She did make an appearance once at the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational 2023 but missed the cut. But that missed cut was not the important thing at the event. More importantly, it was about Grace witnessing her mother play professionally for what would probably be the last time.

To cope with these struggles and find some calmness, Park started painting in February 2025.

“I just started messing with acrylic paints one day and looked up YouTube videos to figure out techniques and colors and see what I can kind of render up,” she said in a phone interview with Golf Digest in December 2025. “It just kind of snowballed from there.”

Now, it’s a way for her to take her mind off everything and enjoy it alongside Grace. The LPGA even commissioned her to create paintings for the 75th LPGA anniversary.

Painting has given Jane Park a rare sense of calm amid years of caregiving and uncertainty. Now, as she deals with her own frightening SCDS diagnosis, that same resilience and creative outlet remain more important than ever.