2025 Go Red for Women Class of Survivors: Tania Saiz
Tania Saiz was misdiagnosed before a CT scan showed she suffered a stroke. Now, she celebrates her accomplishments and encourages other women to know their unique risk factors, recognize the signs of a stroke, and push to be heard.
Tania Saiz was visiting her daughter Maya in Colorado when their plans for an early morning hike took a detour. Tania saw a flash of light in her right eye, like a crack of lightning; feeling a bit off, she thought she might be getting a headache. After she made her way to the couch and laid down under a blanket, Tania kept feeling a tapping under the covers as if something was hitting her.
She got up, walked to the kitchen table and noticed her arm was moving by itself. Then, she couldn’t feel it and repeatedly asked her daughter, “Where’s my arm? Where’s my hand?” A few minutes later Tania fell, and her 19-year-old immediately called 911. The emergency operator asked the teen questions to assess her mother’s condition: Could she raise her arms? Had she ever had a stroke?
It didn’t dawn on the 47-year-old New Yorker or her family that she could be having a stroke. Her symptoms were not typical.
When the paramedics arrived that day in August 2020, wearing full COVID-protection gear, it was intimidating. They asked her to stop moving her arm, but Tania insisted she wasn’t. They asked Tania whether she had ever had a panic attack. Thinking back to 10 years prior, she answered yes, but this felt different.
Tania rode in an ambulance without lights or sirens and no family. Paramedics discouraged Tania’s daughter from coming to the hospital, saying her mother was probably having a panic attack and she could come later.
In the emergency room, the doctor thought Tania was having a complex migraine with aura, a headache accompanied by sensory disturbances ranging from seeing flashes of light and zigzag lines to tingling sensations and difficulty speaking. No stroke alert was called, but a CT scan was ordered.
Tania waited more than three hours for a scan that confirmed she was having an ischemic stroke. Because a clot-busting medicine had to be administered within a certain period of time, that window had closed while Tania waited alone for the correct diagnosis.
The only option that remained was a manual thrombectomy, surgery to remove the clot. Doctors took Tania to the operating room where they tried unsuccessfully to reach the clot in the right side of her brain. Tania woke up in the intensive care unit and couldn’t use the left side of her body because of damage from the stroke.
A week later, Tania was moved to a neurological unit, where she experienced a second event. During an overnight vitals check, Tania thought she heard a loud noise in her room. The nurse didn’t hear it, but Tania kept hearing a shushing noise and said her pillow was making noise. Alarmed, the nurse left and returned within minutes to take Tania for a CT scan that revealed a hemorrhagic conversion, or a brain bleed. An MRI that morning showed the bleeding had stopped, so thankfully, she didn’t need surgery.
The event, however, left Tania with even more numbness in her face and other deficits. To this day, she still lacks sensation from her shoulder to her foot on her left side and struggles with non-visible disabilities that impact her memory, organization and thinking skills.
“I have some issues understanding where that side of my body exists in space,” said Tania, now 51.
After being discharged, Tania spent a month in Colorado in speech, occupational and physical therapy before returning to New York to continue these therapies. She began taking note of little accomplishments to celebrate. For the past four years, she’s kept track of everything she could do each day that she couldn’t do the day before, like tying her shoes or using a knife and fork.
“I think it's important to know that your diagnosis is just that, it's information, and it can help guide your future direction, but it's not a stop sign,” she said. “It's not something that should stop you from trying to achieve your goals.”
When Tania returned home to New York, she underwent heart surgery to close a hole in her heart, known as patent foramen ovale, which doctors discovered when she was in the ICU. PFOs affect millions of people and can cause a stroke.
Tania isn’t angry that her stroke was misdiagnosed; she just wishes the doctor would have called a stroke alert so the CT scan was done sooner. She felt dismissed and disadvantaged being on her own. Tania would encourage others to be strong advocates for themselves and take someone along, if possible.
Tania’s rehabilitation journey has also included challenges in finding support. “Trust what you know is happening to your body, and don't let anyone dismiss your experience or tell you that it's something else,” she said. “Push as much as you need to push until you’re heard and taken seriously.”
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