Melonie McLaurin | Daily Journal Jordan Wood shows the place where his feeding tube is connected. He eats very few solid foods due to a rare disease known as EOE.

Melonie McLaurin | Daily Journal Marshall Berry and Jordan Wood share laughter and a hug at Pat’s Kitchen on East Broad Avenue in Rockingham.

ROCKINGHAM — Marshall Berry and Pat Britt of Pat’s Kitchen will hold one of their locally famous fundraisers Saturday to help the Wood family, who have two sons battling a serious and relatively new disease.

Randi Wood knew something was wrong with her now-8-year-old son, Jordan, when almost immediately after his birth he began showing signs of reflux and was prescribed several medications but was persistently unable to eat.

“When Jordan was little, he basically stayed sick,” she said. “He started having ear infections at two months and had tubes put in at three months. From birth he had lots of upper GI (gastrointestinal) trouble. I have a degree in childhood development. I worked in the public schools eight years, so I knew something was wrong.”

Almost anything Jordan ate made him nauseous, and though he ate frequently, there was a high risk of malnutrition due to vomiting and reflux.

Jordan also developed verbal and oral apraxia, making it difficult for him to speak and to control movements of parts of his mouth.

Jordan’s father, Walt Wood, and his mom took him to the North Carolina Children’s Hospital at Chapel Hill numerous times for speech therapy and feeding therapy.

“So we were driving to Chapel Hill to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that he would throw up on the way home,” Walt said.

Randi said her son also had multiple fecal impactions. His body was not processing the foods he ate and they built up in his digestive tract.

“He was allergic to most foods and he would choke,” Randi said. “People thought he just didn’t like the foods, but it was physical.”

After several years of trial and error with no clear explanation for Jordan’s symptoms, the family made the tough decision to take their son to a pediatric gastrointestinal specialist in Greenville, South Carolina — even though he was outside their health insurance network. That’s when the bills began piling up.

“We prayed about it,” Randi said. “Then we put it in God’s hands.”

Walt said Dr. Jonathan Markowitz was the best chance they had at getting Jordan well.

“He treats kids from all over the United States,” Walt said. “Kentucky, Florida, everywhere.”

It was soon discovered that Jordan suffered from EOE, short for eosinophilic esophagitis, an allergic inflammatory disease difficult to diagnose due to delayed food reactions.

“For delayed food allergic reactions, they put patches on your back,” Randi said. “Each patch contained different food proteins. They started with the most common foods like chicken, beef, wheat. Then after 48 hours the doctor reads them. When you take it off if there’s a red scarred reaction, we know to avoid trying that food. It’s not 100 percent accurate but it’s a good place to start.”

Walt said that the more typical allergy test would not work for Jordan because of the length of time between the food consumption and the reaction.

“The patch test is not as accurate as the skin-prick test,” he said. “But skin prick is not effective for this. A delayed allergy will not show up instantly, and since Jordan doesn’t have anaphylactic reactions, they wouldn’t show up.”

After all the testing, endoscopies and two sets of ear tubes, it turned out there were very few foods Jordan could tolerate. He had to supplement the foods he was able to eat with special liquid formulas, and on April 30, 2013 he underwent surgery to insert a feeding tube.

“It just changed our lives for the better,” Randi said. “He can play ball, he can run. It just made a tremendous difference in his health.”

Walt added that this is the first year Jordan finished a season of baseball. He plays for Family Pharmacy’s team.

The couple also has a 3-year-old son, Nathan, who is showing symptoms similar to Jordan’s. They hope it’s not EOE.

Randi had to leave her job to take care of the kids, and Walt, a physical therapist for FirstHealth, has taken on extra weekend hours in Moore County to help pay for the expensive liquid nutritional supplements Jordan needs to survive. Their house is up for sale and they hope to find a more affordable place to live.

“We need the extra money from Walt’s work,” Randi said. “But because of it, we don’t qualify for any assistance programs.”

Jordan is home-schooled, conversational and has an impressive vocabulary at his disposal. He loves to read and memorizes things easily. There are no signs of any verbal problems now.

During one conversation, Jordan demonstrated several optical illusions from his most recent favorite book and confided that he is fascinated with the magic of the legendary Harry Houdini. Jordan considers himself something of an escape artist. He’s escaped from a special set of magical handcuffs with his hands behind his back. He’s escaped from various shirts as well.

Talking about EOE does not appear to worry Jordan.

“Sometimes if I’m trying a food, I pray that I can have it,” Jordan said. “I’m a Christian. God hears my prayers.”

Jordan explained the process for the many times he’s been “scoped.” He’s been put to sleep almost 20 times for biopsies and endoscopies.

“First I go to the hospital, which is the simplest part of all,” Jordan said. “Then I go to the relax room. You get to lie down under a blanket and watch TV. Then I go to the scope room and they let me try different flavors. The flavors actually contain the anesthesia that would put me to sleep. Then, I wake up. I’m not scared anymore.”

Friends and supporters will pack Pat’s Kitchen on Saturday to raise money for the Wood family.

“We’ll start around lunchtime,” Berry said. “From 11 a.m. — 5 p.m. we’ll be serving barbecue and fried chicken plates for $7 a plate, with delivery for orders of five or more. We’ll have gospel music and an Elvis impersonator, three or four gospel groups and two praise bands. We’ve got Vickie Daniel, Stan and Linda Jacobs, Taylor Wright, the Bryant Family. We’re going to sell raffle tickets for a $900 grill and a 32-inch TV, and there’s hopefully going to be a silent auction, then the regular auction at 5.”

Berry and Britt have been holding these fundraisers for 14 years, and Berry said people are always generous and supportive.

“I’ll sometimes ask someone, ‘How much do you think we’re going to raise this time?’ And they’ll say something like $1,500 or $2,000,” Berry said. “And I say, ‘How about $10,000 to $15,000?’ The lowest we’ve ever raised was a little over $10,000. That always surprises people.”

Berry’s own health has been in decline in the past two years, and for a while he was unable to organize the benefits for which he is so well-known. But he chose to start them up again. It makes him feel good to help people.

“What makes my day is when people come in through those doors and say, ‘You and Pat are good people. You do good,” Berry said. “We are blessed. I believe God watches over this place.”

All proceeds from the fundraiser will go to offset medical bills and expenses for Jordan Wood.

To learn more about Jordan and the Wood family, visit their Team Wood blog at http://wrjwood.blogspot.com.

Reach reporter Melonie McLaurin at 910-817-2673 and follow her on Twitter @meloniemclaurin.