WARDEN — This time last year, Avree Pruneda was dealing with a pain in her arm that would lead her down a trying path. The pain turned into a diagnosis of Ewing’s sarcoma in January, an extremely rare form of cancer. Roughly seven months later, she would be declared cancer-free, finally wrapping up her final round of chemotherapy last week.

With the finish line in sight, the Warden High School junior said, the feeling after coming so far is “surreal.”

“It feels weird to finally be done with chemo and on my path to recovering and just getting better, as far as my immune system, and being able to see my friends again, stuff like that,” she said.

Avree will have a final set of scans to ensure she’s still in the clear and a surgery in November to repair some tendons and have her Hickman line removed now that chemotherapy has wrapped up. Once her line is taken out, she can finally “ring the bell” in the cancer treatment ward.

Tara Pruneda, Avree’s mother, said her daughter is looking forward to “ringing the heck out of that bell.”

“It’s amazing just not having to go to the hospital anymore, finally being able to stay at home with my brother and not leave him for five days out of the week,” Avree said. “It’s just amazing. The excitement, I can’t even explain how excited I am.”

Avree said it has been a tough time since COVID-19 came into effect, limiting her ability to see and interact with friends and family even more than it already was. She said she just felt “isolated in four walls” between the constant trips to the hospital in Spokane and being stuck at home.

As her immune system has grown stronger in recent weeks, Avree has been able to see some friends and family for the first time in a while. “Life’s just so better much now,” she said.

“I got to have a study session with my friends the other day and I told my mom that was one of the most worry-free days I’ve gotten to have in over a year,” Avree said. “It was crazy, I just got to sit down, do some homework and watch a movie with my friends.”

The feeling was almost like a weight lifting off her shoulders, Avree said. For the first time in nearly a year, she said, it felt like she was able to get back to living her life. She said she’s looking forward to getting back to being her typical social, outgoing self.

After getting her learner’s permit in May when she turned 16, she is looking forward to getting her driver’s license soon, getting a job, and getting back some of the freedom she’s missed in recent months.

Tara said her daughter has had a new yellow lab puppy to keep her company recently. With school restarting, Tara said, those two things have kept Avree pretty occupied the last couple of months.

“She’s getting straight A’s though,” Tara Pruneda said proudly. “She’s going through chemo, but she’s getting straight A’s.”

Avree got a jump start on the virtual education that many students went to once COVID-19 surfaced in March. Tara said she feels like the early start helped Avree tremendously by letting her adjust to the changes early.

While her chemo treatments are over, Tara said, Avree still has to worry about keeping her white blood cell numbers up as she’s highly susceptible to infection. She said Avree’s numbers can change quickly, and she’ll have to keep a close eye on her.

Having had to go back to work at the beginning of October, Tara said, she’s had to rely on the help of friends and family a lot in recent weeks to help keep up with Avree’s appointments while she and her husband are at work.

Tara said keeping track of all the new medical terms and information that she’s needed to become familiar with has been a challenge.

“I had to learn a whole bunch of stuff that you don’t ever think you’re going to have to learn,” Tara said. “At times, that could definitely be overwhelming. It’s 2 o’clock in the morning and there’s an occlusion in the line of her antibiotic pump, and you can’t get the air out, and you’re not a nurse.”

Moments like that were really stressful, Tara said. Every doctor’s appointment just has a different weight when your child has cancer, she said. Any time they went in for scans or checkups, she said, she just prayed that Avree was still in the clear.

As a mother, she said, she is just grateful her daughter’s cancer-free and how lucky they are. Having spent a great deal of time in the cancer ward, Tara said she knows not everyone gets out with the diagnosis and fortune that they have.

“With cancer, there’s no luck,” Tara said. “It’s miserable either way, but being able to survive it is a big deal.”

Thanks to the Wishing Star Foundation, Avree will get to spend her 17th birthday this May relaxing in Hawaii. Needless to say, Avree is “really excited” for that.

Casey McCarthy can be reached via email at cmccarthy@columbiabasinherald.com.