Biography of Lori Timney

Lori Timney - July 2014 B

Lori Timney

 
Now, who is this Lori Timney?  Read on and learn about her!
 
In 1961, Lori was the third of four children born to her parents.  When Lori was about 1 year old, she became ill with a high fever and then she recovered.  Afterwards, her mother, who was a nurse, observed that Lori had stopped babbling and was not responding to sounds as she did prior to this illness.  So, her mother took Lori to a medical clinic where the doctors diagnosed Lori to be profoundly deaf in both ears.  In retrospect, this illness was most likely from meningitis, but at that time, it was not an easily identified infection.
 
Lori Timney at age of 4.

Lori Timney at age of 4.

At the age of 2, Lori was fitted with hearing aids.  With the full support of speech therapists, her family became involved in speech therapy for Lori, always encouraging her to talk and, much to Lori’s annoyance, often interrupting her during conversations to correct her mispronounced words.  Anyway, that’s how Lori learned to lipread and to speak.  Only Lori is deaf in her family – both of her parents, two sisters and a brother all have normal hearing.
 
Lori’s parents were strong believers in education, so each time her family moved because of her father’s military transfers and job changes, they made sure that Lori was placed in the appropriate class in the local public school with supportive teaching staff.  Her parents also encouraged all their children, including Lori, to read books.  It wasn’t until Lori was in 5th grade that she finally discovered the pure joy of reading and then became a bookworm.  Which book was it that inspired her?  Why, it was a chapter book about Helen Keller!  Her next favorite books were about Nancy Drew, and then her taste ran to science fiction.  This love for reading helped Lori to stay on top of her schoolwork.  She was on the honor roll for all four years of high school.  Lori’s high school teachers elected her to become a member of the National Honor Society.  By the time Lori graduated from high school, she had gone to 9 different schools in 3 different states:  Nebraska, Virginia, and New Jersey.
 
Have no fear, it wasn’t all work for Lori because her parents also encouraged her to play.  Lori had participated in various activities with her brother and younger sister:  bicycling, building treehouses, playing softball, and skiing, to mention a few.  While in high school, Lori joined the bowling team, swimming team, and ski club.  When Lori was in 3rd grade, her eldest sister taught her how to make her very own dress out of pretty flowered material, complete with a white vest and a pink neck bow, on the sewing machine.  Lori still continues to enjoy doing sewing projects as well as other arts & crafts projects.
 
Lori’s education didn’t end at her high school graduation.  She went on to Rutgers University where she received her BS degree in Computer Science in 1984.  It should be noted that Lori did not utilize sign language interpreters at this college and previous schools because she was raised to lipread and speak and so she was not fluent in sign language then.  Instead, she relied on the lecture notes voluntarily given by her classmates so that she could get to review the material taught by the instructors during the lectures, especially the topics not covered in the textbooks.
 
After her college graduation, Lori accepted a job offer to join Bell Laboratories in Holmdel, New Jersey.  Throughout changing times, this evolved to become AT&T Laboratories.  During the early part of her 20-year career, Lori met a couple of deaf associates who encouraged her to become more proficient in sign language.  They also encouraged her to utilize sign language interpreters for her group meetings and classes.  This made a difference in that this allowed Lori to focus on one interpreter’s face for lipreading and signing hands during group meetings and classes instead of trying to lipread several faces at the same time.  Utilizing sign language interpreters’ services helped Lori to stay on top of her work projects.
 
In 1985, Lori opted to attend graduate school in the evenings while continuing to work full-time for AT&T Laboratories.   At this time, she requested for sign language interpreters to be available for her in these classes.  This arrangement allowed Lori to be able to easily keep up with the professors even when they turned their backs to the students in order to write on the whiteboards while still lecturing.  For the first time, she actually had to groan at the professors’ corny jokes along with her classmates.  In 1990, she was thrilled to have finally graduated from Stevens Institute of Technology with a MS degree in Software Engineering.  While at AT&T Laboratories, she held different roles in various projects: computer programmer, user interface designer, system tester, and technical author.   She was honored with various awards.
 
It should be pointed out that it wasn’t all roses for Lori.  Like any one else who’s different, Lori had her share of being bullied, shunned, discriminated against, frustrated, taken advantage of, and having her heart broken.  Fortunately, with her optimistic outlook and wonderful support of her family, friends, and teachers, she was able to overcome obstacles to reach her goals.
 
Lori and Mike Timney on their honeymoon.

Lori and Mike Timney on their honeymoon.

During the summer of 1993, Lori met Michael and it was love at first sight. Two years later, they married.
 
And then, they became proud parents of three daughters.
 
Shortly after Lori’s youngest daughter was born in 2001, she began to seriously consider the possibility of getting a cochlear implant because she wanted to be able to hear her daughters better than she could with her hearing aids.  After months of researching and thinking very carefully, she made the decision to get her right ear implanted.  She began sharing her experiences with her family and friends via emails.  At their requests, she saved all these emails and compiled them into a journal called You May Call Me Ms. Bionic Ear, which she hopes to make available to the public someday.
 
The surgery for the cochlear implant in her right ear took place in 2002.  It was a major adjustment in that Lori had to re-learn to hear all over again electronically as opposed to acoustically.  At the age of 40, there were several sounds that she heard for the first time in her life:  water running, flag flapping in the wind, birds chirping, clothing rustling, zippers zipping, and food sizzling in the frying pan, to mention a few.  She was amazed to hear the difference in the sound quality of ocean waves crashing onto the beach, raindrops making individual sounds, and even the specific sounds in people’s speech.  This prompted her to become more aware of her own speech and she worked to improve her speech as a result.  She briefly took audiology therapy to further improve her listening skills.   Her therapist remarked that Lori was raised to be very visual and that she has to learn to listen without lipreading, so the therapist would cover up her face during the sessions.  It was a challenge and continues to be so for Lori to follow entire conversations without lipreading.
 
It wasn’t until 6 months after the initial surgery that Lori realized that she was truly hearing incredibly better with her cochlear implant than she did with her hearing aids.  While sitting at the kitchen table indoors, Lori’s youngest daughter, who was a toddler at that time, had spied via the window that Lori’s husband Mike was mowing the grass out in the front lawn.   Still keeping her face to the window and with her back to Lori, she said, “I see Daddy.”   Lori was stunned when she realized that she understood her youngest daughter without lipreading.  As Lori paused at this, her eldest daughter, who was 5 years old and also sitting at the kitchen table, excitedly turned to Lori and said, “Mommy!  She said her first sentence!”  Omigosh, Lori was thrilled to be able to understood her baby’s first sentence clearly without lipreading.   Lori still gets goosebumps just thinking about this.   This is but just one of the many “CI moments” in Lori’s life.
 
Lori’s left ear then became jealous, so one year later in 2003, she underwent another surgery to receive her second cochlear implant for that.
 
While Lori’s hearing did not improved to be 100% with her cochlear implants, there is definitely a dramatic jump from being profoundly deaf to being hard of hearing, especially at the higher frequencies.   Testing showed that prior to the cochlear implants, Lori was able to hear with her hearing aids the vowels (lower frequencies), but not so much of consonants (higher frequencies), such as “s”, “sh”, “ch”, “k”, “t”, for examples.  With her cochlear implants, Lori is now able to hear more across all frequencies and understand more of speech.
 
After working for 20 years at AT&T Laboratories, Lori was offered an early retirement package.  In 2004, with Michael’s support, she decided to accept this and became a stay-at-home mother so that she could spend more time with their three young daughters who were then 2, 5 and 7 years old.  Lori became their Taxi Mom during their teen years. 
 
Lori and Mike with their daughters in 2010.

Lori and Mike with their daughters in 2010.

During their childhood years, all three of Lori’s daughters were involved with Pop Warner cheerleading.  Lori assisted with the tailoring for hundreds of cheerleaders’ uniforms and competition costumes.  Much to her delight, Lori was asked to become an assistant coach for the Pee Wee team for 3 years.
 
In 2008, Lori accepted a job offer to join NJ Relay & CapTel and Sprint Accessibility as an Outreach Specialist on a flex-time basis.  Her primary role is to promote the latest telecommunication devices and services which allow people who are deaf or hard of hearing to be able to be in touch with their families,  friends, and colleagues.  She also provides training sessions for customers and businesses on how to use Captioned Telephone (CapTel) and related smartphone applications.   In 2013, her responsibilities have been expanded to include giving presentations about all the services of NJ Relay, including services for deaf-blind people as well as people who are speech-disabled.  In 2017, Lori became a Customer Relations Manager for NJ Relay & CapTel and Sprint Accessibility on full-time basis.  
 
Meridian HealthIn 2014, Lori was honored to be invited to become a founding member of a newly formed Deaf and Hard of Hearing Community Advisory Committee at Meridian Health.  The basic goal of this committee is to make suggestions and find ways to improve the quality of the services for the people who are deaf, hard of hearing, deaf-blind, and late-deafened at the hospitals, clinics, nursing rehabilitation centers managed by Meridian Health here in New Jersey.  Also, during the years 2014 to 2017, Lori voluntarily worked for New Jersey Deaf Senior Housing, Inc., which was later renamed to New Jersey Deaf Housing, Inc.
 
Having already achieved college degrees in the field of computers, Lori still likes to tinker a bit with gadgets.  In 2013, she completed an on-line course to further improve her web design skills.   Yes, this website is designed and developed by her.
 
Over the years, Lori has given presentations About Being Deaf at various locations.   In these presentations, she explains deafness, the challenges of being deaf, various technological devices to survive in a world full of sounds, and Deaf Culture.
 
Also, Lori used to coordinate American Sign Language courses for people who want to learn to express themselves visually and to communicate with the deaf people.
 
That’s Lori Timney in a nutshell!