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My son had the flu. Three days later he had RSV. Then they told us pneumonia. He just turned two. He's been in daycare since August. And since January, he has not gone a full week without being sick. Not one. Flu A first. That was bad. Hundred and three fever, wouldn't eat, up all night. We thought okay, that's the flu, kids get the flu. He got over it. I kept him home three days and brought him back on Thursday because I had a meeting I'd already rescheduled twice. Friday afternoon daycare calls. He's coughing again. Not the leftover flu cough. A new cough. Wet. Deep. They said his breathing looked off. I took him to urgent care and they tested him. RSV. My stomach dropped. He literally just had the flu. Like his body hadn't even finished with the first thing and now there's a second thing inside him. The urgent care doctor said to watch for belly breathing. I asked how he could have RSV when he just had the flu three days ago and she just said it's not uncommon for them to stack like that. Stack. Like his body was being buried. Then Monday I take him back because he's not getting better. The cough is worse. He's breathing fast. They did a chest x-ray and told me it was also pneumonia. Not instead of RSV. On top of it. He had RSV and pneumonia at the same time. He was lying on the table in that tiny hospital gown and he was smiling at me. Like nothing was wrong. And I just stood there thinking how is this happening. He was healthy five weeks ago. I missed four days of work that week. My husband missed two. We'd already used most of our sick time from the flu the week before. I had to message my boss and explain that my son was in and out of urgent care and I didn't know when I'd be back full time. She was understanding but I could hear it in her voice. That careful tone. I'd heard it twice before already that month. I started working after he went to bed. Laptop on the couch, checking emails, trying to do what I could between 8pm and midnight so my inbox wouldn't be a disaster in the morning. My husband would come out and ask me to come to bed and I'd say I can't, I'm already so far behind. I was running on maybe four hours of sleep and I had a sick toddler and a boss who was being patient but wouldn't be patient forever. And the thing is, it wasn't even over. He got better from the pneumonia. We kept him home an extra three days just to be safe. I brought him back to daycare on a Wednesday. By Friday he had a stomach bug. I actually laughed when daycare called. Not because it was funny. Because I was in actual disbelief. Four viruses. Eight weeks. I texted my husband "he's sick again" and he just wrote back "what is it this time" and I remember staring at that text thinking this is our life now. I was doing everything. We washed hands the second we walked in the door. I changed his clothes after daycare every single day. I had elderberry gummies, vitamin C drops, a probiotic, and zinc on the counter like a little pharmacy. I even tried that xylitol nasal spray someone on Reddit said worked for their kid. Nothing mattered. Every two to three weeks something new came through that daycare and he caught it. Every single time. Everyone told me this was normal. My pediatrician said kids in daycare get eight to twelve respiratory infections a year and that his immune system was building. My mom said I was the same way as a baby. The daycare director said it's always worse the first winter. Reddit said it gets better after the first year. And I wanted to believe all of them. But I also couldn't keep living like this. I told my husband one night I don't know if I can keep working this job and be this sick all the time. Because I was catching everything he brought home too. If he had a cold I got a sinus infection. If he had a stomach bug I had it for three days and ended up so dehydrated I could barely stand. I was sitting in my car at daycare pickup one afternoon just crying. Not dramatic crying. Just that quiet kind where you're too tired to even do it properly. And Meg knocked on my window. Meg's daughter is in the same class as my son. I see her at pickup every day. We do the small talk thing. But I noticed something about Meg that had been bothering me for weeks. Her daughter was always there. Every morning, every afternoon. While half the class was out with something, her daughter was there finger painting and eating goldfish crackers like nothing was happening. I told Meg everything. The flu, the RSV, the pneumonia, the stomach bug, the sick days, working until midnight, the air purifier, the supplements. All of it. And she just nodded like she already knew. She said I was her two years ago. Her older son went through the exact same thing. Sick constantly. Ear infections, croup, stomach bugs, couldn't go a week without something. She almost pulled him out of daycare. She said she was so angry at herself for putting him in daycare in the first place. I asked her what changed. She told me she's a nurse at the children's hospital. She works in the NICU. She sees the sickest babies in the state. And she said something that made me rethink everything I thought I knew about why my son kept getting sick. She said the problem isn't that his immune system is weak. It's that the viruses are fast. She said most viruses have a protective layer on the outside, like a coating. And that coating hides the virus from the immune system. So even when his immune system is strong, it can't get to the actual virus fast enough. It takes days. And during those days the virus is multiplying. And by the time his body finally clears one, another one is already in. Because his immune system never got a chance to recover. Always playing catch up. She said that's what stacking actually is. It's not that his body is failing. Each virus just takes too long to clear because of that outer layer. And all those supplements I was giving him were boosting his immune response. But his immune response wasn't the problem. The problem was the thing protecting the virus from it. I literally sat there for a second not saying anything. Because that made sense in a way that nothing else had. She told me about a compound in wild oregano oil. She called it carvacrol. She said the research on it is focused on how it interacts with that protective layer on viruses. That it supports the body's ability to deal with that outer coating faster so the immune system can do what it already knows how to do. She said the second compound, thymoquinone from black seed oil, supports the immune cells themselves. So you're addressing both sides. The thing hiding the virus and the thing fighting it. I asked her why she didn't just tell me this months ago. She laughed and said because most people think it sounds crazy. She told me about this oregano oil called Germ Gems. She said it's formulated specifically for kids. It's a softgel and you don't even put it in their mouth. You prick it open and rub it on the soles of their feet with a little coconut oil at bedtime. She said the skin on the bottom of the feet absorbs it into the bloodstream. No taste battles. No gross dropper. No fighting a toddler. Takes thirty seconds and they don't even wake up. I said you're rubbing oil on your kid's feet. She said I know how it sounds. I said it sounds insane. She said yeah it did to me too. And then my daughter stopped catching everything. I started that night. Felt ridiculous. My husband watched me do it and didn't say a word which honestly was smart. Two weeks later a stomach bug went through the class. Six kids went home. My son had a runny nose for one afternoon. Went to school the next day. I told myself it was a coincidence. Then hand foot and mouth went around. Four kids sent home. The daycare sent the notification email and my heart sank because I knew it was coming. It didn't come. He was fine. I picked him up that Friday and the teacher said we're so glad he's been here all week. I almost cried in the hallway. Then the flu hit in February. His best friend was out for eight days. I was terrified. I kept doing the feet every night and waiting for the call. The call never came. He went to daycare every single day that week. I messaged Meg and said I think it's working. She said I know. It's been almost three months now. He has had one runny nose and a mild cough that lasted two days. That's it. After months of flu and RSV and pneumonia and stomach bugs and me crying in the pickup line and working until midnight and apologizing to my boss every other day. I don't do that anymore. I go to work. I pick him up. He's there. He's been there. His teacher asked me what changed and I didn't know what to say because I still feel weird telling people I rub oregano oil on my kid's feet. But I'm telling you because I spent so many nights on Reddit reading threads from other moms going through this exact thing and nobody had an answer. They just said tough it out. Wait for the immune system to build. It gets better after the first year. Maybe it does. But my son didn't have a year to wait. And my job didn't have a year to wait. And I was not going to spend another winter like that. I still do his feet every night after bath. Thirty seconds. Socks on. He doesn't even notice. And I go to bed knowing that tomorrow he'll probably be at daycare and I'll be at my desk and nobody will be calling anybody. That's all I wanted. That's all any of this was ever about. I just wanted us both to have a normal day.