A few questions answered, I hope. :)

I've been asked a few times now - whats in fruit and veggies and flowers that she can't have. The answer is not what's IN them but whats ON them. Bacteria collects on them and when she touches them she can get sick. She "could" eat a banana or other fruit that has a hard skin but cannot touch the food until it has been washed with anti bacterial soap and peeled by someone else. Yeast and mold and other bacteria can grow in the dirt of flowers or in the water in vases and become airborn and make her sick.

The second question I get alot is what do the blood count numbers mean...
A normal person has a white blood count of between 4500 -10,000 (or 4.5 to 10.0). When mom first went to OHSU her WBC was in the 40,000 to 50,000 range because that is where the leukemia cells grow.
White blood cells are made up of several types of cells with the largest percentage being neutrophils and lymphocytes.
Neutrophils are the first response team - they do the actual work of fighting infection, they are the first to arrive on scene. In a normal person the range is between 2500 to 7000 (or 2.5 to 7.0).
Lymphocytes also help fight infection and range from 1700-3500(1.7 to 3.5) in a normal person.

Chemotherapy drugs kill blood cells to give the body a chance to create new healthy cells instead of the sick ones. Chemo cannot differentiate between the healthy cells and the sick ones so it kills them all. The body produces new cells all the time which is why they can give chemo to you and it doesn't kill you (as long as it is given in the correct dosage).
What this means is that temporarily the blood cell levels get down to dangerous levels until the body has a chance to recover. With Mom's first infection her WBC was down to .2 (or 200) and her neutrophils were at .00.

Platelets (what helps the body clot blood) are the final key indicator...in a normal person levels range from 150,000 to 450,000. After chemo Mom's levels have gotten down to 6000, anything below 10,000 and you can bleed out and die. This is why we don't leave the infusion room without finding out if she needs platelets and why Dr. Lee fights so hard with the blood bank to get them for her.

So hopefully that gives some perception on those things.