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Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino and his roommates travel to North Carolina for a cornhole tournament in season 6 of Jersey Shore: Family Vacation. Almost all of the JSFV cast goes on the trip except for Deena Cortese, who has to stay back because her son Cameron is sick. He came down with the Coxsackievirus, which sounds fake but is an actual illness. Find out what the Coxsackievirus is and how it’s contracted. 

Deena Cortese misses the trip to North Carolina in this week's episode of 'Jersey Shore: Family Vacation because her son Cameron gets Coxsackievirus.
‘Jersey Shore: Family Vacation’ Cast | MTV

Deena’s son Cameron gets ‘Coxsackie’ in ‘Jersey Shore: Family Vacation’ Season 6 Episode 3

“Cam has Coxsackie,” Jenni “JWoww” Farley tells Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi in episode 3 of Jersey Shore: Family Vacation Season 6. “Coxsackie is like a nasty frickin’ disease,” Nicole tells the cameras. “My kids got [it] and then it went through our whole family and it literally took us out for like two weeks.” 

Deena was supposed to be part of the cheer routine Nicole orchestrated for Mike’s competition. But her family’s health comes first. 

Meanwhile, back in New Jersey, Deena fills her husband, Chris Buckner, in on how contagious Coxsackie is. He thinks it’s inevitable their older son C.J. is going to get it, too. To prevent everyone from contracting the virus, Deena sanitizes all of the kids’ toys. 

According to the Jersey Shore star’s recent social media posts, Cameron is got over the virus and is healthy. It’s unclear if C.J. or anyone else ever contracted the Coxsackievirus, though. 

The Coxsackievirus can lead to hand-foot-and-mouth disease

According to the Mayo Clinic, “many strains of Coxsackievirus exist. But they all belong to a group of viruses called enteroviruses.”

The sickness is most common in children under one — Deena’s second son Cameron was born in May 2021. However, anyone can catch the virus.

Per the Mayo Clinic: “The virus spreads when you touch an object with the virus on it and then touch your face. You also can catch the virus by breathing it in when someone who has the virus coughs or sneezes near you.”

More serious cases of the Coxsackievirus can lead to hand-foot-and-mouth disease. Other issues like myocarditis (inflammation of the heart), pleurodynia (chest pain), encephalitis (brain infection), or meningitis (swelling of the tissue surrounding the brain) can occur in serious cases of Coxsackie.

‘Jersey Shore’ star Nicole ‘Snooki’ Polizzi’s kids had the Coxsackievirus in 2016 

According to a tweet from July 2016, Nicole’s daughter Giovanna had the virus and passed it to her. “Ugh so sick,” she tweeted at the time. “My daughter gave me cocksackie.” 

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Watch new episodes of Jersey Shore: Family Vacation every Thursday at 8 p.m. ET on MTV.