Nomination Letter

Written by BrightStar Care South Charlotte owner, Rampi H.

I am nominating Danielle “Kandi” Peterson for Nurse of the Year for 2022. Kandi has been a faithful nurse of our agency since 2015 and is officially our most tenured employee at BrightStar Care South Charlotte. In the seven years with our agency, she has been a reliable, dedicated and trustworthy nurse. She’s been with the same client for over six of the seven years. Kandi maintains a full-time job at one of the major hospitals in our area, but she has been committed to her one client, Connie with our agency for those six years.

Connie has been our client for eight of the 11 years we’ve been open. She was a medical secretary prior to going on disability due to her diagnosis of Lupus erthyematosus. Kandi provides medication weekly to Connie via IV infusion. Kandi has worked in great detail with Connie and her MD to coordinate how best to divide up the dose of the medication so that Connie can still get the infusion she needed while allowing Connie a little more flexibility with the frequency and length of the infusion visits so she didn’t have to be locked into eight hours infusions multiple times a week.

Kandi has basically met all of Connie’s children and knew and interacted a lot with Connie’s husband, Cecil. Kandi knows a lot about her client and how active member she is in her church. Kandi and Connie have had many conversations over the years about personal and private matters as well as Connie’s love of participating in her church’s choir.
This past year, during one of Kandi’s routine infusion visits, it was Kandi who strongly encouraged, Cecil to go to the hospital when he communicated, he was having trouble breathing and had a headache and fever. Being a hospital nurse, Kandi was pretty sure Cecil had contracted COVID-19. As it turned out, Kandi was right, Cecil did contract COVID-19 and was immediately admitted to the hospital. Cecil ended up getting a pretty bad case of COVID-19 and had experienced a stroke while in the hospital as a complication associated with his diagnosis.

During this time, we learned that Connie also started experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, but she elected not to go to the hospital but rather recover in the comfort of her home. Our dedicated Kandi did not stop seeing Connie, but rather geared up in her PPE and faithfully continued to infuse Connie at home while Connie was COVID-19 positive. Kandi refused to miss her infusion visits because she knew Connie would need the infusion visits even more now that her immune system was compromised even more. Sadly, we did learn that Cecil passed away while in the hospital as Connie was COVID-19 positive at home. Like a tear-jerking love story, they were unfortunately not able to say their final goodbyes in person prior to Cecil passing.

In the weeks that followed, Kandi continued to visit Connie for her weekly infusion visits and now not only was Connie’s infusion nurse, but also lent Connie a comforting, supporting ear as Connie struggled to recover from COVID-19 herself and deal with the unexpected passing of her husband. It’s things like this that amaze me of my nurses like Kandi. Kandi has ALWAYS remained professional and continued to provide the highest standard of care for Connie.

Kandi is truly an amazing nurse who gives quality, compassionate care to those that she serves, and I thank the powers that be each day for introducing me to Kandi seven years ago. Kandi holds a special place in my heart, and we’ve shared how our girls have grown over the past seven years from little girls to young ladies. I feel I can truly say that Kandi is not only an employee of BrightStar Care South Charlotte but is a valued member of our BrightStar Care Family...my family! I ask that you strongly consider Kandi as the 2022 Nurse of the Year for her dedication, loyalty and compassionate care she has given and continues to give to our clients as well as other patients in our community over the last few years while working that the hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic! Thank you for your consideration!