Huge financial problems, need some advice =/

I was recently hospitalized and unable to work for over two months. After going back to work for a few weeks I was again off work for medical problems for a month. Meanwhile I was unable to afford payments on my three credit cards and on top of that I now have a $20,000 hospital bill and a $1200 bill from an MRI my doctor wanted me to have done. I've been back to work for over a month now and make more than enough money to get these things caught up with some time, but my credit cards have all turned my debt over to collection agencies, with the largest credit card balance being given to a law firm for collection. I realize it is very bad that I was unable to make payments on these things for several months and I want to rectify that but after talking to one of the collection agencies I've found that these people are not only horrible but completely unwilling to work with me within reason. Basically the one that I talked to wanted payment in full immediately. While that may be fine for the smaller ones, I obviously can't pay off the $8,000 I owe to the largest credit card all at once, nor do I have $20,000 for the hospital bill that I can pay all at once. The threats of lawsuits which I've gotten from the collection agencies in the mail have scared me to death and out of desperation I began trying to find information on what can be done. I signed up on this site and am waiting for a call from a debt counselor. I'm just wondering if this is a good route for getting out of financial trouble. Regardless of what the collection agencies may think, I sincerely want to take care of my debt responsibly. I simply had no way of knowing that I'd be unable to work for so many months and can't pay everything immediately as they now want. This whole financial situation has overwhelmed me and I don't know what else to do. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. At the very least finding this site has made me feel that I'm not alone, as I'm seeing countless other stories of people who have gotten into financial trouble in similar ways. That's something anyway. :(