News Report: On October 17, 1989, at 5:04 PM, a magnitude 6.9 earthquake severely shook the San Francisco and Monterey Bay regions. The epicenter was located near the Loma Prieta Peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains, approximately 60 miles southeast of San Francisco.
I will never forget that day.
Earlier that morning I had warded off my first cluster headache of the day. However, I am caught unprepared for the next one, while driving to pick my brother Mike up from the airport. He’s in another attempt to quit drinking and hopes this trip will help him manage that.
Oh no, not now! I can’t get to my oxygen to control this attack. I’ll just have to tough it out, somehow. The pain has already begun and my vision is blurred by the tears streaming down my cheek from my already swollen eye socket. From history, I know that I’m in for four hours of excruciating right-sided head pain.
Mike’s timing is not the best for me. Denis and I have been separated for about a month. I moved to San Francisco to be near my new college. Denis will help by hosting Mike first. The plan is for me to deliver Mike to Denis at our house in Orinda today, after my scheduled 5:00 acupuncture appointment in Oakland. Fortunately, Mike’s arrival is on time. His large size and red shirt make him easy to see.
This separation from Denis has really been hard on me. I feel like he talked me into it, “for my benefit.” That stress has to be a factor in this cycle. Starting the psychology doctorate program didn’t help, either. I’m also worn out by the now twice-a-day attacks. The oxygen is no longer working to stop them.
I need this appointment. It’s been over three months since this cycle has been devastating my body. Cluster headaches come in a series of severe migraine-like headaches, with major differences. Each attack comes on so swiftly I can’t get medication into me quickly enough to ease the pain. Preventative medication doesn’t work. What worked somewhat in one cycle didn’t work in the next. Another difference is the regularity of each attack, at the same time each day of a cycle. I feel helpless.
This is my fourth cycle since the first one in 1981. Each previous cycle lasted about four months, until it was finally broken by the treatment-of-choice at the time. Oxygen worked the last time, but this time it only holds off the worst of the pain – if I get to the oxygen in the three-minute lead time I have before the attack is fully there.
I am nervous about this appointment, but I have run out of solutions. I tried acupuncture once before, in the first cycle. Not only did it not work, it also caused an attack within an hour of treatment on my “rest” day. In that cycle, I was having an attack every other day, precisely at 4:00 p.m.
Mike drives us to my apartment and I rest until it’s time to head for Oakland. We will have to slog through rush hour traffic, but that can’t be helped. I’m still in no condition to drive, so I read Mike the route the acupuncture office gave me, taking Highway 580. I am tempted to go the way I normally would, via the Cypress Street Viaduct, but decide to just follow their instructions. Luckily, the traffic on the Bay Bridge is light because the World Series in San Francisco starts today at 5:00. People are all in place or went home early to see the game.
We get to the acupuncture office with ten minutes to spare. Mike is so antsy, I shoo him off to find someplace to watch the game, while I start on intake paperwork.
Suddenly, the building is shaking. The staff and I rush outside to witness parked cars acting more like teeter-totters. Shattered glass is showering down from the building across the street. People all along Broadway are now out of their buildings. Several blocks away I can see a large man in a red shirt and know that Mike is safe.
Shaken myself, I go back into the sturdy one floor brick building that houses the acupuncture office and nothing seems to have moved. The receptionist tells me they had retrofitted the building to withstand earthquakes. The acupuncturist comes out and asks me what do I want to do, considering the circumstances. In my shocked state, I tell him how desperate I am to relieve these headaches and he agrees to give me a treatment.
While I’m on the table he places a number of acupuncture needles in various places on my head, around my right eye and in my left hand. Then he tells me to rest there for about 20 minutes. Five minutes after he leaves, a powerful after shock hits.
What do I do now? If I get up and run outside again, these needle things will be flopping all over the place. Will that stop the treatment from working? Will I be safe if I stay here?
Very quickly I decide to remain where I am. After all, the building survived the first quake. This is my last hope to stop these headaches.
While I lie on the table waiting for the needles to do their thing, I overhear a conversation coming from nearby. A panicked voice says:
“The highway just collapsed. Boom! I was on the top and it just gave way under my car. People were screaming. I managed to get out and climb down and get here. Your office was the closest place.”
A calmer voice says, “You’re shaking, man! Calm down. What do you mean…it just collapsed?”
“I don’t know. Suddenly the road gave out. There were people in cars under my level. They’re trapped.”
He’s talking about the Oakland Viaduct stretch of highway. That has an upper and lower section. That’s the route I was going to take to get here! What happened?
Someone turns on the radio and we listen to the broadcaster describe the Bay Bridge section collapsing and the Viaduct section fully pancaking down to the lower level.
Oh my God, we were just on the bridge! If the traffic were normal we would have been on it when the quake hit.
Slowly, the enormity of the situation starts pulling me out of my fog and I begin to think again.
Is Shannon okay? She lives in Berkeley. We have to get to Berkeley. Then, we can go to Orinda and see if the house is okay. Is Denis okay? He’s in San Jose today. Where was the epicenter? I have to call Chimene in Santa Barbara as soon as I can. The phone lines will be clogged and she will be frantic with worry.
Mike comes back just as I am paying for my treatment and setting up a new appointment. My headaches of the day are over and, hopefully, I will soon be out of this cycle. There will be a lot to do in the aftermath of this earthquake.
That day was the last time I experienced full cluster headaches. The course of acupuncture treatment diminished the intensity of the headaches, although my body kept a sensitivity towards milder headaches for several years. In hindsight, I think the electrical charge in the air from the earthquake and the subtle electrical nature of acupuncture rewired my brain. Today, my headaches are only a memory.