After 251 minutes with Apple Tech, I will tell you what we did that worked for me.
After going round and round, realize, my computer had all "good" information. The backup (I guess) was considered corrupted (surprise surprise, after installing IOS 6!). We all of a sudden had a genius idea to restore the phone, then claim it as a "new" phone. Not a restore from backup, but a new phone. Then we simply pushed/synced the info from my computer onto the phone. Wah - la, a phone that is working again. Halleluyah! Two pieces of advice: backup your stuff to Icloud AND your computer. Both. Time machine was going to be a pain in the a++, it's totally hidden in there. Switch your phone to back up to the cloud, then when you go to sync your phone in ITunes, tap on your Iphone in the menu, hold down control (or right click), and ask it to backup so it creates a second backup on your computer. I backup this beast every single day and it only remembered the last sync, then offered backups from 2, 3 and 4 years ago.
I lost all my text messages/text history, but I backup my notes and other items, so that is all that was lost. And redoing all of my settings, and reloading everything. But I have all my calendar info back!
They still are some of the best customer service reps I've experienced to date, gotta say. Love talking to someone in the US!