“It literally felt like my life was ending” - 2004 Women’s British Open winner Karen Stupples opens up on her battle with Graves' disease

Former LPGA golfer-turned-broadcaster Karen Stupples said she felt as if her life were ending when she was diagnosed with Graves' disease.

Stupples won the 2004 Women's British Open and retired in 2014. After retirement, she moved over to broadcasting, but her world turned upside down when she was diagnosed with Graves' disease earlier this year.

Graves is an autoimmune disease that can lead to an overactive thyroid. Stupples experienced so much weakness that she couldn't even lift small objects. Her resting heart rate was near 150 in late January. A few weeks later, she received a diagnosis of Graves' disease.

She was quoted as saying, via Golfweek:

"When I was going through it, it literally felt like my life was ending. I couldn’t see a pathway to feeling well again."

Karen Stupples contacted Pat Bradley, the LPGA Hall of Famer who also suffered from Graves' disease during her playing days. After a few months of medication, Stupples returned to the LPGA Tour and won nine more titles.

Bradley's experience with Graves' disease helped Stupples gain some confidence, and she decided to have her thyroid removed. On May 3, she had her thyroid removed at the Clayman Thyroid Center, an institute only dedicated to the management of thyroid diseases and thyroid cancer.

"Within 24 hours of having my thyroid out I realized just how sick I was," she continued. “All of a sudden I felt my mood had lifted and I had a bounce back in my step that I hadn’t had for months trying to struggle through the illness."

She took a one-month break to protect her vision, which could have been affected by thyroid eye disease, a condition with which she was also diagnosed.

She also said:

"They give you a long list of potential side effects. I suffer from really bad cramps. One of the side effects is it could make you go deaf. … You have to weight that out, do I want to see or do I want to hear?"

Five months after her operation, Karen Stupples is fit to go back to her job as an on-course reporter at the Golf Channel.

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How many titles did Karen Stupples win on the LPGA Tour? A golfer's professional golf career explored

Stupples turned pro in 1998 and earned non-exempt status for the LPGA Tour season by finishing 52nd in the Final Qualifying Tournament. She made her professional debut at the 1999 Sunrise Hawaiian Ladies Open but failed to make the cut. Her best result that year was a T8 finish at the State Farm Rail Classic.

It took Karen Stupples four more years to secure a win, despite several top-ten finishes. In 2004, she finished as the runner-up at the ANZ Ladies Masters in Australia. She won the Welch's Fry Championship, defeating Jung Yeon Lee and Grace Park by five strokes.

Three months later, the Briton won the Weetabix Women's British Open, her lone major championship title. She finished at 19-under to beat Rachel Teske by a five-stroke margin. This marked her last win on the LPGA Tour, as she only secured one more professional title after that. Karen Stupples' final win came at the S4/C Wales Ladies Championship of Europe, a Ladies European Tour event.