When Denise Arehart heard she had about a 3 percent chance of surviving intestinal cancer, she told family and friends to concentrate on that figure.
Only if her chances were zero would she give up, said her husband, Michael Ondrejko.
But she lost her battle Oct. 18 at her home in Firestone. She was 43.
Arehart, a popular psychology professor at the University of Colorado at Denver, often had “an entourage of students following her, seeking her practical and charitable brand of wisdom,” said a friend, Ann Toro-Allen, a former Arehart student and now a teacher in Parker.
Arehart made friends of all kinds – students, faculty, adoptive parents (as she was) of Eastern European babies, and animal-rights activists.
“Denise fit more living into one week than most people manage in three months,” said another friend, Lynn DeJohn.
Getting her to relax was pretty much impossible, said Ondrejko.
She was a good teacher because “she wanted to pass on knowledge,” he said, adding she managed to do that “even with students who didn’t want to learn.”
Arehart inspired many to pursue careers in psychology, said Annette Towler, a friend who teaches the subject at the Illinois Institute of Psychology in Chicago.
When Arehart and Ondrejko decided to adopt twins from Belarus, they learned Russian so they could speak with their son, Aleksander, and daughter, Alena, 2 1/2 years old at the time.
Arehart got involved in organizations that sponsor foreign adoptions, and she became an unofficial mentor to others about to adopt, said Cindy Dallow of Greeley, who adopted a girl from Ukraine.
Often, Arehart would go over to adoptive parents’ homes if they called with problems.
With Dallow’s help, Arehart left a video message for her children.
Arehart was working on a book about adopting children and often wrote poems, including some about her own illness.
In one she noted that other people taking chemotherapy with her were driven to the treatments by their children.
“My children … will not remember much of me,” she wrote.
Denise M. Arehart was born Nov. 16, 1961, in Toledo, Ohio, and attended the University of Toledo before moving to Colorado to further her education at the University of Denver, where she met Ondrejko.
In addition to her husband and children, she is survived by her parents, Dee and Darlene Arehart of Cheyenne, and two brothers, Doug Arehart and Darrin Arehart, both of Toledo.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at 303-820-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com.
