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Jane,
There are a few reasons that it's confusing:
1. When reticulocytes are counted, the results can be shown as either a percentage of cells (0% to 100%) or an absolute number of cells per unit of blood (a very large number).
2. Different treatment centers and the labs they rely on use different units of measurement and show them with different notation, e.g., liters vs. milliliters or 0.5 vs. 50%.
3. Different centers and labs have different ideas about what the "normal" range should be. There's no central authority that decides for everyone else. And individual doctors may have their own ideas that don't match the lab report's range.
4. Men, women, and children of different ages have different normal ranges.
5. What's normal for a disease-free person not undergoing treatment is different than what's normal (i.e., expected) for a patient known to have a bone marrow failure disease or undergoing treatment. In particular, the reticulocyte count can be misleading for anemic patients so doctors may instead use the "reticulocyte index" that is based on your reticulocyte count and your hematocrit.
Some patients try to analyze the lab results themselves and it can be a useful to learn what it all means, but what's most important is to notice how your counts change over time (not the results of only one particular test) and how your doctor interprets them.
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