I lost my game data- How do I restore?

Sometime yesterday I was having a problem with my Sims 4 game. I would try to go onto the game but my PC would give me the message “Unable to start, the file appears corrupted.” As one would do, I researched how to get my game to load and came to the conclusion that it was probably an issue with my cache. I cleared the cache for the most part, and then started patching the game. (I use Steam to launch the Sims so I went through the “Verify integrity of game files” process.) Now I’m not a super tech savvy person, so I’m not sure what exactly when wrong along the way but I followed exactly what it said to do on a forum I found. So when I go to play the Sims 4 this morning it takes me to the Main Menu, per usual. However, it only gives me the “new game” option and won’t let me retrieve the game I spent 200+ hours on. It launches perfectly fine now, but like I said, my game is gone. What did I do wrong along the way? Is there anything that can be done to retrieve my game?