Born with a congenital heart defect, Ziyan underwent her first heart surgery as a baby in China and spent much of her childhood in and out of hospitals.  

When she was 5 years old, Ziyan and her parents—mom, Xuan, and dad, Bin—moved to the Bay Area, where she became a patient at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford. 

“My mom would tell me that I had a ‘naughty bunny’ in my chest,” Ziyan recalls. “When I felt the heart fluttering, it was just the bunny playing around, not listening to her mom.” 

But as she grew older, Ziyan’s condition worsened, eventually landing her on the heart transplant list. “My world kind of shattered,” she says. “I knew something was wrong, but I still didn’t know the whole truth. My view of myself had to be reconstructed.” 

After a two-year wait, Ziyan received a life-saving heart transplant in 2017.   

Not long after, a member of her medical team referred Ziyan to Make-A-Wish Greater Bay Area. Ziyan took time to reflect before ultimately wishing to be a published author. “I didn’t really know English when I first moved here, so reading helped me a lot,” she says. “I just fell in love with literature and books.”  

In her own book, she hoped to share her story with others, and convey the sense of isolation she often felt throughout her medical journey. “I was ashamed of my heart condition, and I used to hide it like a big dirty secret,” Ziyan says. “I was so obsessed with being normal that I began to lose a part of myself.” 

Since age 10, she had kept a diary, documenting every tearful experience. “I always knew I wanted to share my story somehow,” she says.

Make-A-Wish helped bring that story to life.

“When Make-A-Wish came in and said this was possible, that’s when I really started to take it seriously and work on a book I knew I would be proud of and want to share with the world,” Ziyan says.  

Make-A-Wish arranged a mentor for Ziyan, who met with her regularly to guide her writing and refine her storyline and character development. The team also connected her with editors, illustrators, and layout experts to bring her vision to the printed page. “I’ve gone through multiple variations, working with them to perfect different aspects and make it a story worth telling,” she says.  

Ziyan’s wish was a multi-year experience that culminated in a 280-page novel published through Amazon Publishing. On December 13, 2025, Heartbreaker, Heartbroken was officially released.  

Inspired by Ziyan’s own medical journey, the story and characters draw from real-life experiences at Lucile Packard, including her relationship with members of her care team, with whom she remains close today. While deeply personal, she hopes the novel also resonates with other patients. “I wanted the book to really capture what it feels like to be in the hospital—the loneliness, the hopelessness, the sadness,” she says.    

To celebrate the release of her book—and her wish officially coming true—Ziyan held her wish celebration at Lucile Packard, surrounded by family and friends.    

“It’s unbelievable that this is even real,” she says. “It’s been so fulfilling. I’m so grateful for every single person who has helped—from my friends who had to hear me talk about the plot, to my mentor, to my editors and illustrators, to the Make-A-Wish volunteers who donate their time and energy to help make kids’ dreams come true.”  

Now 19 years old, Ziyan is a sophomore at Johns Hopkins University, double majoring in molecular cellular biology and psychology. She is working toward both an MD and a PhD, with a focus on stem cell biology.  

“I’m hoping to be a pediatric cardiologist, so I can be just like the doctors who were so passionate, so loving, and provided so much empathy to me when I was really in need of that,” she says. 

Her lab focuses on studying the causes of embryonic heart failure, and she hopes to one day create transplantable organs using a patient’s own stem cells. “I think that’s the future of regenerative medicine,” she says.  

Ziyan says becoming an author helped her realize that her dreams were possible. “Make-A-Wish provided the push needed to make everything happen,” she adds.  

Even now, rereading her novel brings her to tears.  

“It’s as if I’m reliving my own pain,” Ziyan says. “[The main character] Zaraphina is me, and I am her. She’s able to tell a story that I wasn’t, and I love her. My only hope is that my story will help others who are in her position feel less alone. No one deserves to go through the pain that she went through.”