My photos are no where to be found!

Hello,

I am very disappointed, as I just realized I am missing a very large portion of photos from my camera roll. Years worth of memories. Two nights ago I changed my Apple ID email because I couldn’t remember my password to my old one and I was trying to join Apple Music so I needed to be able to log in. When I Google what to do in my situation, it says to log back into the old account and click “download originals” and then they should be on the new email. But, I can’t do that because I don’t have my old password. I’m so upset. I pay monthly for iCloud storage and I don’t understand how this could have happened. I also don’t have any other Apple devices so I can’t check to see if they are on anything else. Please help me:(