Word document disappeared after saving

I keep a journal and try to update it daily. This morning I updated the journal and got an error message that Normal.dot was being overwritten and did I want to do that? No. Then I got another message that said my file was read only. Hmm. I look again and it says Normal.dot is read only. I click on cancel, and everything closes. Curious, I open my document again--and it can't be found. I looked in temp, Recent, everywhere I could think and the document is gone, though it's listed in Recent. When I do a search it lists the document as 548kb, but when I click on the link, it says it can't be found, and when I click on "open containing folder" there's a shortcut but no document.

I have a backup from a couple of days ago, but since I'd updated the journal I'd really like to find it again. Is there any way to do that?

And yes, I realize World 2003 is an old program, but it's worked for me up to now, and I don't like the newer versions.

This document is shared networked, as said it opened as read-only. It was not in protected mode and so it reported read-only.

When he asked to be overwritten was because he had some change in it, it may be that when it occurred it corrupted his file, but... to disappear like that, it may have accidentally deleted it. What operating system do you use?