All 4 Uses

TB
in
The Glass Castle
(Edited)

I kept telling myself Dad was right, that they knew how to look after themselves and each other, but in the spring, Mom called me to say Dad had come down with tuberculosis.
p. 260.2 *

tuberculosis = a serious and highly contagious type of lung infection
Dad escorted me back to the TB ward and introduced me to all of his friends.
p. 260.8

TB = tuberculosis -- a serious and highly contagious type of lung infection
He said his bout with TB had set him to pondering about mortality and the nature of the cosmos.
p. 261.1
By then he'd not only beaten back the TB, he'd been sober longer than any time since the Phoenix detox.
p. 262.1

Definitions:

(1) (TB)
tuberculosis - a serious and highly contagious lung infection transmitted by inhalation or ingestion of tubercle bacilli and manifested in fever and small sores in the lungs
(2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)
someone's initials