Hello -

First off, thank you to everyone who responded when I blanked the C/A/T MySpace page last night even though you guys had no idea what was going on.

Now that most everyone directly related to us has been contacted, I got the go ahead to say something here from Kat as it’s something people who have enjoyed C/A/T should probably know.

On Thursday Kat was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Kat has been feeling ill for about a year or so now and until yesterday they could not pinpoint exactly what was wrong with her. Her declining health was one of the major factors behind the drastic line-up change in February that had her leaving C/A/T after 3 years of being my main live band mate.

Fortunately, Hodgkin’s lymphoma typically has one of the highest survival rates as far as cancers go (she has "the good Hodgkin’s" if you are familiar with the show ’Curb Your Enthusiasm’ at all, heh). While we are of course optimistic that she will fully recover and beat this disease, it was, obviously, a pretty heavy thing to have dropped in our laps this evening.

Kat has been adamant in encouraging me in continuing C/A/T through this ordeal, so beyond maybe a few days that will be lost in post-production for "The Great Crisis" this will not, as far as planned, affect the band in any real major way. Likewise, this will not affect the activities of the label and mail order side of things for Crunch Pod. I’d just ask that people give us this coming weekend to relax and recharge our batteries and I will catch up on orders and label related business at some point next week.

And to anyone curious, Kat and I still plan on getting married despite all of this. :)

If you wish to contact Kat or send her a message, you can do so by sending her something to her personal MySpace profile which is in the C/A/T Top 8.

Thanks again for your understanding and well wishes,

-Ben Arp
C/A/T & Crunch Pod