For the last several years, Ben Arinze grad has contended with an unknown illness — one that turned his life upside down. Though he has struggled to overcome the challenges he encountered, Arinze has shifted his focus to rebuilding his career and reprioritizing what he values most in life.
In January 2022, around the same time he received a finance industry job offer in Manhattan, Arinze began experiencing discomfort in his right leg and developed a limp. He had always been a relatively healthy individual, so these symptoms surprised him.
“Up until that point in my life, I had never been sick,” Arinze said. “I just always assumed that medicine was way more advanced than it was.”
However, two months later, when Arinze made the move to Manhattan in hopes of beginning his new job at a private equity investing company, his symptoms started to escalate. His limp quickly became debilitating, he had difficulty walking and using his hands to perform simple tasks such as typing and experienced memory loss and decreased cognitive abilities. Ultimately, his father had to travel to Manhattan to bring him back home due to these symptoms. After working at his new job for only a few weeks, Arinze took sick leave from work.
“[It was] very bad timing,” Arinze said. “This was my first month on this new job — and it was my dream job to get to work in a private equity investing in New York City.”
The doctors who ran tests on Arinze did not find anything abnormal about his health. Arinze’s first electromyography, a test that measures the electrical activity of muscles, appeared to be normal. His second EMG, conducted two months afterwards, showed only minor abnormalities. The doctor was not overly concerned with what was causing Arinze’s symptoms, but Arinze believed something was very wrong.
“He told me that a lot of [his] patients just commit suicide,” said Arinze. “That wasn’t a very encouraging thing to hear from a doctor.”
In July 2022, the doctors performed a third EMG, and Arinze learned that his symptoms were likely the result of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
“I woke up one day, and I had no idea where I was, who my girlfriend was, what was going on,” said Arinze. “I didn’t know anything.”
Arinze continued seeing medical professionals, and after more than six months on wellness leave from his New York City job, he lost the position.
“I lost my job, I lost my apartment, I lost my freedom, I lost my social life,” Arinze said. “[I lost] everything.”
In October 2022, a neuromuscular doctor at New York University Langone Health confirmed that Arinze did not have ALS, but the direct source of Arinze’s symptoms remained unknown.
As the quest for answers continued, Arinze found himself losing hope. He was uncertain if he would ever regain his lost abilities and pursue his personal and career goals.
“When I was really sick, at the worst of it, I really had no hope,” said Arinze. “It was the darkest moment of my life.”
Although Arinze still didn’t know the exact nature of the disease, with the start of a new year, Arinze began seeing signs of improvement. He regained movement in his limbs and sensed improvement in his cognitive abilities. By March 2023, Arinze began physical therapy. As Arinze’s journey with physical therapy began, he started contemplating his professional trajectory.
“Every day I’d go in there, they’d ask me ‘what are your goals?’” Arinze said. “That’s the first thing they asked me when I got there.”
Upon entering therapy, Arinze set his goal on attending the Johnson Graduate School of Management.
“My biggest goal [was] to go to business school in the fall,” Arinze said. “To live alone again, to support myself again and to be independent again.”
Arinze said that his therapists were with him every step of the way, and he is grateful to have found such a strong support group.
“I’ll never forget what my physical therapist said on the very first day,” Arinze said. [My therapist] said ‘You’re gonna go to Cornell, even if I have to drag you there myself, but I’m gonna make sure you go to Cornell.’”
After starting therapy, Arinze saw improvements in both his health and professional life.
In August 2023, Arinze moved to Ithaca to start his journey as a Cornell MBA student. Soon after, Arinze had another EMG showing that he was completely healthy, and in December, Arinze received an investment banking offer in NYC for summer 2024.
Though Arinze never received complete closure regarding what caused his illness, he is appreciative that his experiences have granted him a newfound perspective on life.
“Coming back to where I am, I am able to now enter the industry with a lot more perspective of understanding what’s important,” Arinze said. “I really want to prioritize my loved ones, my family, my girlfriend — All of that stuff means way more to me than it ever did, because I realized that in a blink of an eye, it can all be taken away from you.”
Arinze explained that as he continues recovering, he understands that he must focus on living in the present because the future is unknown and not guaranteed.
“I can’t say that it’s over because I am definitely still recovering in some ways and am still getting better every day,” Arinze said. “But one day at a time — that’s the biggest lesson I learned — which can be very hard to do when you are at a school like Cornell where people are planning 20 years in advance. You have to be willing to adapt really quickly when things change because you think you know what’s going to happen, but you never really do.”