I had her for 15 years. She'd survived fatty liver and a huge bladder stone. At one point I was feeding her through a stomach tube.
She'd been with me through many moves and I joked she was going to live forever, and had 7 lives left.
She was smart as cats go, and never fooled by reflections or object permanence.
If you tried to get her to play with a laser pointer she would just watch it a bit then look at you.
One day I noticed she hadn't eaten, and the next day she was hiding behind a bookshelf.
We took her to the vet, who gave her a shot of steroids and antibiotics.
She was slightly better for a day. She wanted to snuggle up in the crook of my arm, which was very rare.
Aka "pitten kitten".
But she still didn't eat.
I took her back to the vet, and they were going to keep her overnight.
She was usually very standoffish and hissed at everyone but me and my SO.
She hated vets especially, and growled and hissed at them nonstop.
Sometimes they got out leather gloves to deal with her. They always ended up sedating her.
Sometimes she got a little crazy at the vets and would prowl around swiping her front paw, and "lunging".
She didn't have front claws (previous owner) so I thought it wasn't fair she was being cast as a villain.
Her little paw swipe couldn't hurt anyone.
But one time she was "lunging", she was even lunging at me and didn't recognize me, which was disconcerting.
(That was a previous vet trip and another vet.)
The vet was explaining she probably had stomach cancer and there wasn't much that could be done.
I realized they were waiting for me to say she should be put to sleep.
I asked to see her, she was growling and hissing miserably in a cage alone in a room.
Other employees were sitting in the next room just chatting and laughing on their lunch break.
They had an IV machine in the room with her, low on battery, beeping constantly, probably torturing her.
She was hunkered down in the litterbox they had put in her little cage.
She stopped growling when she saw me.
I told her she didn't belong in there, she was a good kitty, she wasn't poop.
She let me pet her, but wouldn't let me pick her up, she just went all boneless if I tried.
I was crying saying she was "just a kitty" over and over as I petted her.
She was very small and trembling.
She wasn't going to get better and she didn't look like she wanted to be alive.
So that was it.