KILAUEA – When Kara Stokesbary is driving from Kilauea to Lihue, she never says, “Oh crap, I have to go to work.” Instead, she says, “I get to go to work.” She loves her job as a mammography technician. But
KILAUEA – When Kara Stokesbary is driving from Kilauea to Lihue, she never says, “Oh crap, I have to go to work.”
Instead, she says, “I get to go to work.”
She loves her job as a mammography technician. But life on Kauai didn’t start in a breast scanning room. It began at Hanalei Bay when her first visit to the cove in 1995 was all it took for Stokesbary to know that a one-way plane ticket to Kauai would be her next move. She was visiting her older brother Tim, known as “Stokes,” who had relocated to Kauai after Hurricane Iniki in 1992.
Always a water bug, she was a member of the Newport Outrigger Canoe Club, in Newport Beach, California. So, the transition joining up with the Hanalei Canoe Club in 1995 was a natural one. Her love of water sports extended to another variety.
“Whenever I could, I would grab my paddle board, head down to Anini or Nawiliwili beach and stick my toes in the sand,” Stokesbary remembered.
While she never imagined living in Hawaii as she surfed and skied growing up in California, now she can’t image leaving. She divides her time between running, tending the fruit trees in her yard and caring for patients at Wilcox Memorial Hospital in the Women’s Center.
“There’s a lot of anxiety with women and their screenings,” Stokesbary said. “Whether they’re afraid of the outcome or they have fear because friends or family have been diagnosed.”
Stokesbary is referring to the diagnoses of breast cancer, the most common cancer among American women, except for skin cancers, according to the American Cancer Society. The organization reports that about one in eight women in the United States will develop invasive breast cancer during their lifetime. Stokesbary is dedicated, along with a team of other mammographers, to making those numbers lower for Kauai women.
“We treat everybody here as if they are family. When women come in, we take them out of the their comfort zone, they’re half naked,” Stokesbary said. “Of course they’re nervous because they have heard from their friends and family that mammograms are uncomfortable, but they should never be painful.”
Having worked as a mammographer for the past two and a half years, Stokesbary makes it a priority to ensure a pain-free experience. Early detection of a lump can make a definitive difference.
“You have early treatment versus late treatment,” Stokesbary said.
After a busy day, she returns to her home on a half-acre property – her “paradise” in Kilauea – where she is greeted every night by Minette, her 8-year-old cat with white and orange markings.
“She runs out and greets me by the car like a puppy dog,” Stokesbary said with the laugh. “I pay the mortgage, she owns the house.”
Stokesbary settles in after doing some time in the yard unwinding with a shovel, pruning shears and a wheelbarrow. She occasionally prepares her homemade recipe for a papaya habanero pineapple sauce, using fresh ingredients from her yard.
After 20 years on Kauai, she knows this is where her heart is.
“It’s home,” she said.
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This is an ongoing feature that focuses on everyday people. Email Lisa Ann Capozzi at lcapozzi@thegardenisland.com
