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JUNE 2021 23 said. "I loved running half marathons in high school, and I ran track and cross country three seasons. I was on a run when [UVA rowing assistant coach] Erin [Neppel] was biking. "She pulled over and she said, 'You need to try out for rowing.' I was like, 'I don't think so. I am taking some time off sports, that's a weird sport and I don't know any- thing about rowing.'" After another rowing assistant colluded with Condlin's high school track coach, she was convinced to give it a try. She rowed on the novice squad that fall, earning time in the main boats by the spring. By her third- year season, she had earned a spot in the third varsity eight. All of this was highly improbable, not only due to her lack of a rowing back- ground, but because Condlin has a disease called Autoimmune Autonomic Ganglion- opathy (AAG), an illness that targets the bundles of ganglia nerve cells and the au- tonomic nervous system that regulate all of the automatic body functions. As a freshman in high school, she started noticing mild symptoms. As they became more and more severe, so did the puzzle- ment of her doctors. Condlin and her case report were shipped to various doctors and clinics across the country before the diagnosis was found, as well as a researcher, Dr. Jay Pasricha, at Johns Hopkins who was working on that particular rare disease. A management program was put into place, and Condlin's life returned close enough to normal that she was able to become a student-athlete at UVA. "I got so attached to rowing because it was the first time in a really long time I had been able to feel powerful and been able to feel like my body could do something really good," Condlin said. "I think that despite the extra challenges that my body posed, this was something really good for me because it made me feel like my body could be good again." Head coach Kevin Sauer and the team's athletic trainer, Dana Friske, worked with Condlin to carefully monitor her health, making adjustments to her training, com- petition schedule and workload as neces- sary. It all was working until last year when during an EKG test at the team's annual training trip to Florida, Condlin suffered a medical emergency. "The conversation shifted from, 'Is Emily strong enough to do this if she has to take days off and has a different training plan?' to, 'Is this safe?'" Condlin said. "My parents, Kevin, Dana and Dr. [John] MacKnight all came together to decide that it wasn't really a possibility anymore." As important as rowing had become to Condlin, though, she wasn't willing to just walk away from the sport. "Kevin and I talked about how can I still make Virginia go fast without being in a boat, without pulling on an oar," Condlin said. "That's when I shifted to more of a manager role. And the cool part about what Kevin did for me was that he made me an athlete-manager hybrid, so I was still al- lowed to row in boats on easy, steady days; I just was never allowed to do high-heart- rate, intense stuff. "Over time, I realized that was actually really good for my body and made me a lot healthier overall, but it was definitely something that I wasn't ready for when it happened." Condlin will be graduating this spring after majoring in inter-human biology, a major and a career path fueled by her experience. "Dr. Fortunato at Northwestern, who coordinated my care, and Dr. Pasricha at Johns Hopkins have really given me my life back," Condlin said. "I went from be- ing a high schooler who was on bed rest in the hospital constantly, not even able to get through a full day of school, to running half marathons and being a student-athlete. Dr. Pasricha's research is the reason that I've been able to be around and I've been able to even leave my house to go to college. "I kind of always knew I wanted to be a doctor, but after experiencing all the differ- ent ways that physicians impacted me dur- ing that experience and the researcher who was studying something so specific and rare but still had the power to completely give me my life back, that was really im- pactful for how I want to practice medicine in the future." Condlin is beginning a master's in the public health program at UVA next year and is currently in the process of applying to medical schools for the year after, but she's already gotten a jump on trying to give someone else their life back. "At UVA, I work in the Zunder Lab where we are identifying gene drivers involved in the development of atherosclerosis and heart disease," she said. "Once understood and identified, these gene drivers can be used as targets when others are designing gene therapies for cardiovascular disease." "The thing that I love so much about rowing is that there's always a way to be better. There's this idea of the perfect stroke that we all want where everybody's moving together and the blades perfectly fall in the water. Honestly, it is impossible to do every stroke like that, but that's what drives me and drives us all to keep coming back, that pursuit of getting better and being the best that I can be." CONDLIN Condlin did not let Autoimmune Autonomic Ganglionopathy — an illness that targets the bundles of ganglia nerve cells and the autonomic nervous system that regulates all of the automatic body functions — stop her from becoming a collegiate rower. PHOTO BY MATT RILEY/COURTESY UVA