Emma Warner’s times, and the tides churned in the 13-year-old swimmer’s wake, wait for no cancer.

In the year since the Sedona Swim Team’s fastest girl had her thyroid removed in her ongoing battle with the disease, Warner’s breaststroke times have, if anything, gotten faster.

“It feels great,” she said. “It shows me that I earned it, and I’m on the right track to being where I used to be before all my setbacks with cancer.”

Her 1:19.14 in the 100-yard breaststroke at the Prescott Plunge not only qualified her for the Arizona Swimming Regional Short Course Championships, it was over a second faster than all her 13- and 14-year-old competitors — and more than 10 seconds faster than her time in the event nine months ago.

Although Warner’s sub-36-second finish in the 50-yard breaststroke also won her age group Jan. 10 in Prescott, she will be swimming in five other events at regionals Friday through Sunday, Feb. 19 through 21, at the Mesa Aquatics Club.

“So proud of her,” said A. Jay Bronson, her head coach with the Sedona Swordfish. “[I] can’t wait to see how she does.”

The fact that the cancer has spread to lymph nodes in Warner’s neck did not stop her from also qualifying for regionals in the 100-yard butterfly and freestyle, 200-yard breaststroke and individual medley as well as the 400-yard IM.

Nor did additional cancer removal surgery Sept. 9 and two rounds, in the past 11 months, of radioactive iodine therapy and subsequent weeklong isolation periods. Not even a third expected surgery will stop Warner from missing another swim meet, if she has anything to say about it.

“I had to push myself to get back in the water,” she said. “I knew I had to train as hard as I possibly could to get back to where I needed to be.”

Even if that means dividing her time between Sedona and Houston, where Warner’s family is seeking specialized treatment of her lymph nodes from a cancer surgeon.

“That’s what we’ve been told by her doctor at Phoenix Children’s Hospital,” Warner’s mother, Robin, said. “Her doctor doesn’t see an end in sight to her surgeries.”

Unusual for thyroid cancer, she added, which is not typically so acute in one so young.

“It’s just been three months,” Robin Warner said. “Typically, it’s one surgery and you’re good to go.”

So Warner expects a call from Houston this week, where doctors will begin attempts to figure out the cancer’s specific genetic makeup.

“At that point, I have no idea how long we’ll be there, or have to be off work,” Robin Warner said. “They don’t know why her lymph nodes have grown so significantly. This type of cancer is typically slow-growing. That’s not been the case with her.”

Medical expenses and time off work last year have already emptied the savings of Robin and Steve Warner, a heavy equipment operator on natural gas pipelines.

“Out-of-pocket, we probably spent $10,000 just in meeting the deductible alone,” she said. “With the time off my husband took for previous surgeries, we lived off our savings, which pays all our bills. We probably spent close to $20,000.”

So they have taken to a Go Fund Me webpage, where they have raised $15,323 in six days.

“It was a very uncomfortable thing to do,” Robin Warner said, “but so many people told us we should because it was the one way they felt they could help. The goal was just to help us out with the medical deductible. My husband’s hardly been back at work long enough to put money away.”