Krister was just about to turn 30 when he was interviewed for the first time in 1981. He had become blind a few years earlier as a complication of his juvenile diabetes. He was glowing with youthful enthusiasm. The blindness had changed his life completely, but mainly in a positive sense, he maintained. It had made him break away from his small town life, he said. He had learned new things about himself, and he was looking forward to starting further education and a new career.

Since this first contact, I have followed him for 30 years, through repeated interviews. He has fought for his right to personal development, independence and ‘to be like everybody else’. He has moved to different places and has had several jobs. But his life story is also shaped by the many years with chronic illness and disability. It is a story about a trajectory where bodily changes, cumulative impairments and new illness complications have marked his life and where he has repeatedly had to find new adaptive strategies over the years. At the age of not even 50 he was more or less forced into early retirement and this was one of the most painful experiences of his life. His life was lonely when I met him in 1998 and 2006.

When interviewed the last time, in 2011, he was 60. He had then been retired for about 10 years. His disabling conditions limited his life in many ways. He looked back on a life shaped by very particular experiences. Yet somehow he seemed a little more confident than he had been in earlier years, not least concerning his future ability to handle new difficulties.