THE MARTIAL PLAN
UFC star Joe Lauzon helps his son, others build confidence through jiu-jitsu
At 6 years old, Joey Lauzon is a brave boy. He battled cancer as a newborn, has learned to live with hearing loss and is doing great in kindergarten.
He’s a fighter, just like his father, UFC star Joe Lauzon, and he took center stage Thursday at Lauzon Mixed Martial Arts in South Easton to practice jiu-jitsu moves and have fun with his friends who are also hearing impaired.
“There have been challenges along the way but he’s been able to rise up,” Joe told me of his son. “He’s awesome.”
Before starting kindergarten in Bridgewater, Joey, who has moderate hearing loss and wears hearing aids, graduated from the Clarke Schools for Hearing and Speech in Canton, a national nonprofit that prepares children who are deaf or hard of hearing for mainstream schools and teaches them how to listen and talk using the latest technology.
“It’s a big change from Clarke,” Joey’s mom, Katie, said of kindergarten. “There’s a lot more kids, it’s a lot more noisy, but he’s done a really great job there and Clarke helped us a ton getting us ready for that big classroom.”
Joey’s family is grateful for all the support Clarke teachers and staff have given their family so Joe welcomed Clarke students, parents and teachers to his gym, where 17 adorable boys and girls from ages 3 to 7 had a blast doing ninja drills and building their self-esteem.
When Joey was born, doctors diagnosed him with stage 4 neuroblastoma, a childhood cancer. A tumor pushed on Joey’s spine, and doctors feared Joey may be paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. Luckily, that wasn’t the case. Joey was six days old when he began three rounds of chemotherapy and has been cancer free for five years. The treatment did, though, damage his hearing.
On Thursday, Joey followed in his proud father’s footsteps, shaking hands with his friends.
Joey’s parents worry about teasing but say their oldest son is quick to make friends and tells kids his hearing aids are like glasses, they help him hear like glasses help people see
— something he learned at Clarke.
“For his entire life, we’ll lean on Clarke for advice,” said Joe.
For Quincy mother Stephanie Stechenfinger, it was amazing to watch her 7-year-old son Asher, who is deaf but hears with cochlear implants, do ninja moves and have fun.
“We didn’t know if he would walk, never mind be running or jumping around, so to see the progress that he’s made has been indescribable,” Stephanie said of her son, who was born premature at 28 weeks and spent three months in the NICU.
The family moved back to Massachusetts from Arizona so Asher could attend Clarke. In the fall, Asher is excited to start first grade.
“He’s just like everyone else,” Stephanie wants his future classmates to know. “All we want is for him to be embraced and accepted.”