It looks almost like a burn....like someone put a flame to the bark. I have never seen anything like it. If it isn't a burn, it has to be a fungus, virus, bacterial infection, insect damage or some combination of these. Without knowing more, I would begin by treating the tree with a fungicide and try to eliminate fungus as a possible cause. It shouldn't hurt the tree to try that. If that doesn't work, and you see no sign of insect infestation, you may be left with an untreatable condition that the tree will either out grow or succomb to. That's the best I can offer....hope it helps. Good luck!

New reports the week of 6/22-29: Reported on 6/24: Late blight has been confirmed in tomatoes on an organic farm in Harrison County, OH. Harrison County is in east/central Ohio, one county west of the Pennsylvania border. Previous reports (most recent first): On 6/19 late blight was reported on tomato in a community garden in north central Suffolk county, NY. The gardeners were taking out all their tomato and potato plants. On 6/17 late blight was confirmed on tomato from a home garden in New Haven county, CT. The plants had been grown from seed by the gardener. Outside our reporting area, a 6/21 find on potato in Michigan. The week of 6/8-15 there were two additional late blight reports in Pennsylvania. Both were on tomato transplants in home gardens. One find was in Somerset Co. (south central PA), on a plant purchased at a local greenhouse. The other was from Beaver Co. (near the Ohio border), unknown source. Late blight was found in a greenhouse in northwestern Pennsylvania in mid-May. It was being monitored and treated to prevent spread.

How interesting we all seem to agree about Faron going for a repeat in 5 yrs. not 10 (irrespective of the fact of his/her doctor saying she was now good for 10 yrs). My BFF (40 yrs now) is a nurse & nurse manager. She doesn't do unnecessary medical testing (for herself). She successfully overcame & beat cancer (had her lumpectomy in drs.'s office specifically to avoid hospital borne germs & infections). She had a colonoscopy 5 yrs. ago & had some polyps removed then & there (3-5, I forget) . But she was definitely told to have a repeat in 5 yrs., matter of fact, the last time I spoke w/ her she was getting ready for the repeat. She knows my medical history, that this ailment doesn't run in my family (or hers either). Yet when I reminded her I have no symptoms of anything like that, she pointed told me calmly, but factually, that in this disease, by the time one gets symptoms it's too late. My landlady (of 20+ yrs., also a nurse, in surgical & ICU recovery) has herself had bowel obstructions & intestinal surgery & she pointedly told me to have it done, that it FAR outweighs any risks. She also suggested I ask 2 things in having it done: lower dosage & split dose. My doc just told me I'll have to make those arrangements w/ the doc performing it. The thinking seems to be lower volume (less of that gook to drink & excrete); also split dose, half the night before the test, half the morning of the test. Apparently it makes for a cleaner read of the intestines. I told my doc (who knows I'm resisting) I'll do it w/in the year. He told me he did his & if he can do it, I can do it. Next time I see him I'm going to ask how his went. So look, here we are ALL reminding you that knowledge is power, just get it done! Just like I just did my mammogram, only delay was it's usually heck to get it scheduled. It's over & done w/ for another 2 yrs., I'm guessing. Just waiting for the results (I expect a clean result).

To all who have wished me a speedy recovery: Thank You! I am feeling steadily better (1 month out), and expect to be back to full strength shortly. @Alisande, If you think you may have babeseosis at the moment, then insist on being tested. Same with anaplasmosis, both are less-difficult than Lyme to diagnose from blood smears, I believe. (The issue with the blood supply, aside from the traditional head-in-the-sand attitude of the blood industry, and of course the cost, is that there is no rapid-enough test for babeseosis -or possibly the other tick-borne diseases -to work with the need for fresh blood.) But as I mentioned, anaplasmosis has distinct, characteristic, changes in routine blood work that are almost diagnostic. I can check next time I am in the medical library if there are specific changes in the case of babeseosis. I may have that info for erlichiosis, if you'd like to know it. Anaplasmosis has distinctive mullberry shaped artifacts (morullae) in the disease-specific blood smears (as does erlichiosis, I believe). Babeseosis is different but unless you, like I, have had malaria it's pretty distinctive in the blood test for it. The tests aren't inexpensive (the unadjusted street price for them is $500-$1,000 -each- but my insurance company whacked both of them down considerably. Since you're on Medicare, you'd only pay a percentage of the CMS-negotiated cost which is likely to be as aggressively moderated as that of my own insurance company's contractual rate. Since all three are bacterial, not spirochete, -caused it doesn't require the complex analysis of PCR bands that Lyme does. But frankly if I was on my second continuous month of Lyme I would have pretty awful constitutional symptoms from that lengthy treatment alone. I can barely make it out the 30 days of a single course before I have disturbed sleep, night sweats, muscle aches and pains, etc. Part of my fierceness about discovering ticks early is to avoid the need for the lengthy course of anti-Lyme doxy. Since doxy won't really do anything for babeseosis - and other drugs will - why keep taking what may be the wrong cure? I don't think you would experience symptoms from babeseosis or anaplasmosis (or even Lyme) infection before locating the tick. The incubation time needed to get sick from a still-attached tick would have resulted in a deer tick as big as a green pea, a nasty pearly-grey tight blob. It's hard to imagine you wouldn't have noticed it well before getting sick if it was still attached. Don't you itch like mad when you have a tick attached for more than a few hours, not to mention days? I'd be wild! BTW, the tick-hours-of-bite measurement has a built in problem: the aging relies on analysis of stomach digestive contents. But that assumes, and it is not always true, that the bite the tick was discovered making is the only bite, not a second one. Also you mentioned you squashed the critter in removing it. You might want to consider beginning more intensive searches for ticks on your body twice a day in order to not miss one. I have hair so long I can sit on it so I do realize it can be hard to check your scalp and hair. I have also found attached ticks under my breasts, in my belly button, on various unmentionable parts of my bottom, and even larval ones between my toes and fingers. I usually keep my long hair tied up in pigtail outdoors. I tuck the pigtail down the back of my shirt to minimize the likelihood of ticks getting caught in my hair. Of course I always have a hat on outside for sun protection, so my head and scalp are less-common tick areas. I do tick-checks at least twice every day of the year, unless I am away from home overnight in the city. It's just like brushing your teeth. I'm not convinced that Lyme "lurks in your body" but given that it is caused by spirochete I suppose it's possible. (Another spirochete-caused illness, syphillis, has a proven habit of lingering on and re-occurring, often despite treatment.) I know, for certain, that I have had Lyme (from clearly positive blood tests), been treated successfuly and subsequently had lengthy periods of profound physiological, and mental stress, without Lyme popping back up and adding to the problems. And I still have one band for Lyme on the latest PCR, which indicates an old, resolved infection, so there's no question it's still visible in my blood, but not thankfully making a pest of itself. I also still have serological evidence of malaria in my blood and I haven't had any illness from it in more than fifty years! But the bacterial diseases (anaplasmosis, babeseosis and erlichiosis) seem extremely unlikely lurkers and later-pouncers, especially if treated. What I definitely think they can do, however, is damage other organs and systems resulting in consequential, long-term problems (like the poor fellow described above who lost his spleen as a result of a babeseosis infection.) Your description of high fevers, muscle aches and pains, etc., sound much more like anaplasmosis than Lyme. Did you have any "regular" blood tests done at the time? The average time from bite to onset of symptoms with anaplasmosis is 8 days. I could look that time up for erlichiosis and babseosis, if needed. I don't know enough about Fibro, but aren't night sweats and aches and pains part of that, too? You may not need to go to any doctor more specialized than your primary care doc to check for the bacterial tick-borne illnesses. And then you'll be able to know, and treat, any that are there. I didn't get any hint that the tests for them lead to confusing, or contradictory results, as I know the Lyme test can, because it is a different, and more complicated test.. If you test negative for them, including having normal routine blood results, you can cross them off your list of worries and look elsewhere. (And get off the wretched doxy!) HTH, L.