Actor Patrick Swayze’s fight with pancreatic cancer became national news last month.

Local resident Carol Birney already knew the disease’s story. Her husband Thomas Birney died from the cancer seven years ago, only six weeks after being diagnosed.

“Before we knew it he was gone,” Birney said.

His death at 66 left her in shock, but the native New Yorker and current Cary resident isn’t one to sit around and feel sorry for herself.

She took action and in 2003 became involved with the Pancreatic Action Network, a national patient advocacy organization that works to raise awareness about the disease.

Birney, 70, now serves as the organization’s coordinator in the Raleigh-Durham area.

Her three daughters, including Morrisville Commissioner Liz Johnson, are also active in the organization.

On a recent weekday Birney sat in a Morrisville conference room with a perfectly styled blond coif and fresh spring colors offset by a small ribbon pinned to her shirt. It’s purple, the color of pancreatic cancer awareness.

As Birney whipped out an organized array of facts and figures on the disease, there was a sense that she finds her own solace in these details.

It was information that she and her family didn’t have when her husband was suffering and dying from the disease.

Browse to the Pancreatic Cancer Awareness organization’s Web site and there’s a litany of information about the disease, from current research to the basic facts about the disease’s course.

Facts like these: The pancreas produces enzymes that help in digestion, and also produces the hormones insulin and glucagon which work together to maintain the proper level of sugar in the blood.

The pancreas itself is a 6-inch-long gland located in the abdomen surrounded by the stomach, small intestine, liver and spleen.

The pancreas’ location behind these other organs makes it hard to read with scans, making the cancer harder to detect, Birney said.

Pancreatic cancer’s high mortality rate is directly linked to its late detection.

The disease is often caught in later stages — with symptoms like fatigue and weight loss — at a point when treatment means extending life, not saving it, Birney said.

“It’s such a deadly disease,” Birney said, noting that the lack of survivors also contributes to the disease’s low profile.

It’s a profile that not just Birney but people like Lori Matteson hope to raise. Matteson, 46, looks like a lot of Triangle women. Well-heeled and well-spoken, her eyes light up when she speaks about her 5-year-old son.

She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2004. The north Raleigh resident works with the organization to raise awareness about the disease.

“It’s rare to have people with pancreatic cancer to talk to,” Matteson said.

It really helps others battling the disease to see people like Matteson, Birney said.

A very public case like Swayze’s raises awareness of the disease, which equals more research and earlier diagnosis, Birney said.

It has been such research that has recently uncovered genetic links to the disease.

Birney wants to prevent other families from feeling the loss that hers felt when they lost Thomas.

Birney met Thomas on Long Island at a church dance. She was 19 and he was 22, red-headed and tall. She loved his outgoing nature and laugh “that everybody still remembers.”

He went back to school on the G.I. Bill after they had married and started a family and eventually taught languages and worked in school administration.

He was fluent in German, French and Chinese.

“He couldn’t balance the checkbook but he could do anything with a language,” Birney laughed.

Simply, he was hers and he was taken away too soon.