She developed Swim Bladder Disorder and she would swim around upside down for days at a time. Sometimes she would would just lay there upside down, looking around. She looked like this:
The first time I saw it I was horrified that she was going to die! But then I researched it online, and learned how to treat it. (click on the link and you can learn too!)
I don't know how many people would come over and see her and say " You know your fish is dead? And I would say "No, she just does that".
To treat her I would not feed her for a couple of days , then I would thaw and peel frozen peas and feed them to her. Sometimes she wouldn't get them in time, and they would just pile up on the bottom and make the water cloudy. So I started feeding them to her on a toothpick. She would actually swim over and eat them right off the pick! After a couple of hours she would flip back over the right way! I always thought it was just the pea going into her stomach and weighting her down, but it worked because she would be fine for months. She did get the disease several times after that and I would do the same thing to help her. My friends and family all thought that Goldie's behavior was weird enough, but the fact that I would do this for her, well...they thought I was losing it!
But she lived for what I thought was a pretty longtime for a goldfish. I had never had one live that long before, and I felt good knowing that I had a little help in her reaching that ripe old age. When she did get sick and die- I did lose it. I sobbed over her tank like a baby, and later buried her in the backyard. For me , there will never be another one like Goldie:(