My iPhoto photo library disappeared after I used a SanDisk Cruzer Fit USB Flash Drive

Hi! Not sure if these 2 things are connected, but I bought a SanDisk Cruzer 32GB USB Flash Drive. I dragged my documents over and copied them on to the flash drive. I didn't have iPhoto open. I didn't drag any applications, photo library folders, or anything else over to the flash drive. I just dragged over 3 file folders of work and personal documents (MSWord, Excel, etc.) over to the flash drive. It took some time to copy all my documents over, so I left it overnight.
The next day, I decided it might be a good idea to also back up my photos from iPhoto. Interestingly enough, nearly all my photos had been deleted--save for photos from the last 3 - 4 weeks or so. That's right, a decade worth of photos were gone. I went online, Googled the problem, looked through this community and verified that I did not accidentally import one library into another or move (or delete) the backup iPhoto Library folder or anything. I even checked the flash drive. Nothing. Just the 3 folders worth of documents that I'd copied over.
Has anyone heard of a flash drive somehow corrupting or deleting photos from an iPhoto library?
I'm stumped. I have dug through other regular folders where I'd stashed some .jpgs so I could burn a CD for family, so I have put back about 338 photos from a library of thousands of images (some which are, of course, irreplaceable). The irony is that this last year, I'd been scanning in photos from actual physical photo albums to digitize them and have them handy on iPhoto... not knowing that they would disappear. And, of course, the double-irony is that I was using a thumb drive to back up my photos when they disappeared. If I wasn't so bummed, I'd be laughing right now.

Thanks for the helpful thoughts LarryHN. I'm having a Mac guy look at my MacBook Pro in the next day or so to see what he can find out. I described the issue on the phone... and like you, he said that saving my documents to a thumb drive shouldn't affect my iPhoto library.
One reason I bought the thumb drive was to back up my iPhoto library, but the time I got to that, it was already gone. I've thought of getting Time Machine (and have checked out other systems), but the reviews are so mixed, I'm dragging my feet on coughing up the cash right now.
When I launch iPhoto, I only see the last few weeks' worth of photos. Oddly, photos I imported 3 weeks ago appear, but are in a folder dated November 2012--when I know I took those and imported them in January 2013. So that's weird...
When I got to iPhoto Library, I have an Auto Import folder with nothing in it. "My Pictures" folder has nothing as well. I did hold down the option key while opening up iPhoto, but only my recent library (a few weeks' worth of photos) appears. I'm using iPhoto 2011 (6.2.3). I can only hope my Mac guy can help...

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