BELLINGHAM — If it hadn’t been for the baby girl born during Laurie Michaels’ third brain surgery in three days, the Bellingham radio announcer wonders if she’d still be alive.

Michaels, 40, recently returned to Bellingham after about three months at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where she went through eight brain surgeries to repair a brain aneurysm that was discovered during her eighth month of pregnancy in December.

The aneurysm was about the size of a quarter, lurking next to her brain stem. It would have been fatal if it had burst, Michaels said. But instead it got bigger, she said, because she was pregnant with her baby daughter, Ella Ray.

Fueled by her body’s increased blood flow, the aneurysm pressed against an optic nerve, giving Michaels double vision and sending her to the doctor in early December.

“I’m so lucky,” Michaels said late last week after a day of rehabilitation therapy. “If it wasn’t for Ella, I would have been dead, for sure. That thing would have exploded. She’s a miracle child.”

But the discovery launched a grueling marathon of brain surgeries, spinal taps, nausea, headaches and a bout of spinal meningitis.

Meanwhile, friends at KISM-FM, where Michaels is a morning radio host, and sister radio stations held fundraisers. Some shaved their heads, as did some listeners, to show their support for their newly shaven friend. A Web log that chronicled Michaels’ stay in the hospital logged more than 80,000 hits.

Michaels’ morning co-host, Brad Cash, and his family have looked after Michaels’ older son, Tommy, while her husband, KGMI-AM radio announcer Joe Teehan, shuttled back and forth to Seattle.

Today, it’s her gratitude for what friends, family and strangers have done for her that brings Michaels to tears.

“You don’t realize until you’re in a place in your life when the rollercoaster ride is going uphill, that you have so many friends and family who would do anything for you,” she said. “You just don’t even know. Then you discover how much people care.”

Back at St. Joseph Hospital’s inpatient rehabilitation program on the South Campus, Michaels still sometimes battles nausea, double vision and fatigue. But she was chatty recently with visitors and moved her feet and legs as if her body was itchy to get moving again after so much time in bed. She ran her hand often over her head, brushing her stubble and the Cshaped scar over her right ear.

Her days are full of therapy, she said. Just a few minutes of walking and balancing can be exhausting, she said.

“It’s the easiest stuff you’ve ever imagined,” she said. “But you know what? It wears me out. It’s shocking to me how much it wears me out.”

She plans to return to work on the radio, she said. But first, she has to get her energy — and her voice — back. The aneurysm paralyzed a vocal cord and altered the sound of her voice, but she said an outpatient procedure could bring it back again.

Her more serious worry is her swallow reflex. She hasn’t been able to swallow — or eat or drink — since her first brain surgery. So she’s working toward the day that she won’t have to eat her food through a tube in her stomach.

Michaels knows she has some physical work ahead of her, but knows it could have been so much worse.

“Mentally,” she said. “I couldn’t be happier.”

She hopes to return home in a couple of weeks, she said, though she’ll continue to need therapy and assistance.

“I just want to get back to normal,” she said, “making dinner, helping with homework, having play dates. The normal stuff is going to be more than enough.”