Can you sue a vet for malpractice?
So, my BF and I recently acquired a cat. She belonged to my aunt, but my aunt has to be in the hospital for an extended period of time. My aunt's roommate was not taking very good care of the cat, so we agreed to take her and now my aunt wants us to keep her since a) She's not going to be out of the hospital until at least December and b) She's probably going to move out of state at that point to be with other family members.

The cat is a sweetheart. I mean, just a doll. Her name is Sweetpea and it really fits. However, it was clear she had some major health issues - she was extremely skinny, would barely eat anything, sneezed often, and threw up after over-eating. We first got the cat a month ago. I had to leave soon after to take my car up to Washington to get fixed (long story) but my live-in boyfriend was going to take Sweetpea to the vet ASAP to determine what her problems were, exactly (ie, to rule out major feline diseases) and if she was contagious to our other cats (we kept them separated, initially).

The vet's answer was that Sweetpea was just old - late teens, probably. She wanted to run more tests - a blood test, x-ray, and MRI. We had her run the blood test and x-ray. The blood test showed (according to the vet) that Sweetpea had no communicable diseases and the x-ray showed she was cancer-free. The only problem the vet could find, she said, was that she had slightly inflamed bowels that may or may not have been caused by a parasite but she wouldn't know without running even MORE tests. Now, by this point, I am running out of money. My main questions are answered: She has no contagious diseases, doesn't need any medication (beyond vitamins), and if she does have a parasite we can probably take care of it with over the counter medication. Right? Wrong.

At the vet, we specifically asked about Sweetpea's sneezing and runny nose. The vet said that it was normal, that it would go away in time and that it might be allergies.

More than two weeks later, and her sneezing has gotten worse. She has mucus that regularly needs to be cleaned off of her face and because she can't smell, she doesn't want to eat. She has good days and bad days but today was particularly bad so I went online and googled "Cat sneezing," and from what I've been reading it sounds like Sweetpea has feline herpes (different than human herpes) a recurring upper resperitory infection that not only can make her miserable (as it is!) but is ALSO highly contagious and un-curable! Which means my other two cats probably have it by now, too!

I'm so angry! We asked the vet about the sneezing directly, we asked for a full physical for the dang cat, we specifically stated we wanted to make sure she had nothing contagious, why didn't she test for this, too? It's obvious this cat had a rough life prior to us, and feline herpes is apparently very common in shelter cats. I know I should have probably gone online and done research earlier, but my life has been really crazy lately and I thought I could (gasp) actually trust the dang vet to do their dang job.

I don't know what to do with the cat. Should I take her back to the same vet? Should I try a new vet? We aren't made of money. We've already spent a couple hundred apparently fruitless dollars on this cat, not counting vitamins, specialty cat food, etc. etc. I feel like going to the vet, presenting her with her oversight, and demanding she prescribe the appropriate medications and not charge me for the visit. Would this be appropriate? I'll admit I might be a little biased since I just spent an hour forcing cat food and benadryl into an animal who wanted nothing to do with either and then running after her as she spewed snot and saliva EVERYWHERE.