Jessica Parent of Ann Arbor will be admitted to the hospital next week for her firfth round of chemotherapy. She's already endured nearly a year filled with surgery, radiation, chemo, assorted medications and needles. Brain cancer is difficult to live with, especially when you're 9 years old.

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"I just feel really uncomfortable with all the medicine. I feel really tired and I don't like the feeling," said Jessica.

But she has learned many lessons over the last 10 months. She told Local 4's Lila Lazarus that she doesn't take anything for granted and has learned a thing or two about being appreciative for what you have.

"I have a cancer that's better to have than a big peoples' cancer," she said. "And even though a lot of my friends don't get this and seem healthier, there are people in worse positions than me that have worse cancers. I'm glad I don't have one of those."

Her ordeal began Nov. 29, 2003. It had started earlier than that, but no one noticed. She had become a little clumsier at gymnastics and a bit slower on the soccer field. But her parents, even her father, University of Michigan neurologist Dr. Jack Parent, assumed it was due to her growth spurt.

Her feet had grown three shoe-sizes that school year and she'd gone from a size 7 to a size 12. When she started getting constant headaches and vomiting, her parents thought it was just pre-pubescent physical changes. Doctors thought she had asthma.

Jessica looked healthy, so her parents believed the diagnosis. But when the vomiting continued, her father insisted she undergo get further tests.

Her father recognized the image right away. His beautiful, seemingly healthy daughter had medulloblastoma, a malignant brain tumor.

"That was the ultimate punch in the gut," said her mother, Kelly Parent.

Dealing with cancer in children has its own special challenges. For example, Jessica had never heard the word "malignant" before.

"At first I didn't know what it meant until he said I had to have surgery," said Jessica. "Then I was really upset. I didn't really want this to happen to me."

Within two days, Jessica was in surgery. After a nine- hour operation at the brain stem, the tumor was completely removed.

Within 10 days of surgery, she was asking for homework assignments. By January, she was back to school and playing soccer -- just as her hair started falling out. Wearing a wig is just too cumbersome, so she started to wear hats.

As she underwent 31 doses of radiation, she also was involved in piano, gymnastics and religious school. She even remained a top student.

The family considers themselves lucky. Unlike other children with the same cancer, Jessica hasn't had to relearn how to walk or talk or eat. She's shown great strength and resilience.

And now, she's showing ingenuity. When Jessica first came home from the hospital, families in her Ann Arbor community brought her dinner. Together with her mom, Jessica decided to collect the recipes and make a cookbook. They started e-mailing friends and family across the country asking for more recipes.

"We told everybody we knew about the cookbook and they sent in recipes and told people they knew, and soon we were getting recipes from people we had never heard of," said Jessica.

The book is called "Cross Country Cooking: Cooking for a Cause."

It's available online for $15 plus shipping.

Jessica wants to raise $50,000 for CureSearch and its clinical research arm, the Children's Oncology Group, so that, in her words, "Kids don't have to die from cancer."

Jessica's chemo treatments will continue into next year. She'll be a cancer patient the rest of her life with regular doctor visits and MRIs. But so far there's no sign the cancer has spread.

You can follow her medical progress at www.carepages.

"I've always believed she's a kid destined to do something big with her life," said Kelly Parent. "She has this amazing social conscience and I just look at what she's gone through now and how she's handled herself through this. When she beats this, she's going to soar."